Sex and Murder Magazine

By Daniel Fabiani

They pulled up to the house in a battered Volkswagen. Trees slewed about the land, reflecting thin afternoon light back at the open sky, and the roads all conferred a certain style, “The Deep South.” A single home rested upon a parched piece of land, its old white fence as bitter and brittle as the home itself. The paint was a lattice of old white gone grey from age, and the roof a pointed brown like the steeple of a converted church.

“This must be a church,” Gerald said to his brother Harry.

“No it isn’t, just go in there and get some directions,” Harry said, angry about Gerald losing his sight of the road, winding them up at this old, haunted looking place.

Gerald carried out his brother’s orders, he was in no mood to argue. Harry’s short temper had always found ways to control Gerald, a typical older-younger sibling relationship. A secret hate had boiled between them since the day Gerald slipped out from between their mother’s sticky red thighs in the maternity ward, but in their adult life they had come to the conclusion that they were in need of a middle road; a pathway to let bygones be bygones, to let adolescent feuds not dictate the rest of their lives, and allow it all to fade away like the watery light of dawn. They’d planned this trip together to see if there was anything to save, aside from a shared gene pool.

Gerald stepped out of the car and strode towards the haggard looking house. His brow was wet and its sweat dripped into his eyes, then down his face, ending up in his mouth, its taste like hot sea water. The sun had baked his colorless face, bringing a rouge tinge to his cheeks and chin.

Gerald found the stairs and walked up; a door was not too far ahead. He came up to it and knocked, immediately frightened that his force would cave in the seemingly hundred-year-old, hollowed wood frame. Still he hit it until the hinges squealed like slaughtered swine and a crow-wrinkled old woman, with hair dangling like sparring silver snakes stared from the crevice of wall and door, her two sugar-white eyes curiously marking him.

“'Ello,” she muttered through odd colored teeth, her accent so deep rooted it sounded British.

“Sorry to bother you,” Gerald managed, “but I’m looking to get back onto I-95, would you be—“

She cut him off with a tiny white hand, veins as rigid and red as blood clots. The lady moved to the side and opened the door fully, allowing Harry to walk in. The house was lit by the daylight. Vases of thirsty, wilted flowers took up every corner of what he could see. The only thing positive Harry noticed was the oddly lacquered floor, iridescently sticky.

The lady showed him in, wiping her hands on her apron, the pinching smell of rot lingering thickly through the air of the house. She stood in front of him then, much shorter than he, still wiping her hands on her apron. A viscous slime hung from her pallid collar bone like stretched out, red bubble gum. Pink spittle dripped off her chin as she chewed on something taut as tendon.

“Forgive my form!” she yelled, startling Gerald, “but we make ouwa’ own suppa’ here.”

Her pearlescent eyes marked Gerald once again. He felt like she was seeing through him, like a human x-ray, down to the very calcium of his bones. He didn’t blink or breathe, and his groin throbbed along with his escalated heart rate; he wanted out. He pulled the old map out of his sweaty back pocket and tried to steer his mind away from the twisted white orbs in front of him.

At the sight of the damp piece of paper, the old woman hobbled closer to him, like a peg legged pirate; the smell of mothballs wafted from her hair.

Her arms stretched out for it, fingernails caked with dirt, healed old scars along the tops of her palms. Her eyes lit like embers, as if she had once owned the old map. Harry pointed to the destination circled with a black Sharpie marker, and she grabbed his finger with her sweaty hand and slid her lips apart to smile, showing Harry a full set of wooden teeth. He stepped back, startled, and she took another small step towards him.

“Look, I just need to know how to get to this spot, back to I-95, I don’t want to trouble…”

“Oh there is no trouble, and the way to get there is very simple. That place you are seeking is a very nice one indeed.” She coughed a very dry cough, and spit a tobacco brown wad of spit to the side of the floor. “Just know that the place is very special. I know of a family who live there, you know.”

“Well I am not looking to board with any family, I am on a little vacation with my brother—“

“Brother you say?” Her eyes widened. “Excellent, how fun!”

The old woman gave Gerald concise directions, told him how to turn around and get back to the highway. He thanked the lady for her time, but didn’t accept her attempted embrace. He needed not to smell her anymore, so he exited quickly.

Outside, his nostrils drew in stale summer air again. Gerald knew that life was damn good, until he noticed Harry’s angry-sour face, his hand seemingly in love with the car horn, not letting up even when Gerald was back in with the seat belt on.

“What the fuck is your problem man?”

“Nothing, do you know how to get there now?”

“Yeah.”

“So drive, little brother.”

Before they knew it, the sky fattened with storm clouds so inky black it made the exhaust from the diesel engines seem pale. Rain ambushed them, and the clouds illuminated with webs of white lightning and cracks of thunder.

The rain came down in thick droplets and pounded at the windshield as if it wanted to come in and warn them of danger. Kudzu lit up neon green at every snap of lightning, it was everywhere in the Deep South, wrapped around highway guard rails and the surrounding plains.

The state line of Georgia came out of nowhere, it was as if both of their wishes entwined and magically made the sign appear. “Welcome to Savannah” it read, and the brothers smiled in unison for the first times in their entire lives. Both were worn out from the drive, eyes puffy and sleep deprived; Gerald made the decision to park the car and ride out the rest of the hurricane-mad rain; they faced eastward so the rising sun would wake them, and let themselves succum to the gentle call of sleep.

*****

Dawn was vermillion and rich with dew and fat goblets of leftover rain which took in the sun, sparkling diamond bright. Harry still sucked in air as if he’d never slept a good night in his life, his gasps sounding unhealthy. A fresh ray of light passed through the windshield, and Gerald swished his finger through its warmth, wishing he could just ride on it and fade away. The vast morning azure made him feel as though the vacation would be everything he and his brother needed to heal that open wound between them, something the city life could never do for them. Gerald nudged Harry with his finger, and he jumped as if a bee had just stung him on the ass.

“What the hell was that?” Harry slurred, a bit of drool sliding down his chin, eyes webbed red with exhaustion.

“Let’s go,” Gerald said. “It’s morning!”

“You drive man; I’m just way too fucking tired.”

Gerald consulted the old map once again, started up the engine and listened to the howl of the pistons. By the time the car’s temperature gage rose, the day had begun to feel as stuffy and claustrophobic as a sauna.

He turned the car onto Route 16, where old railroad tracks embedded into the ground now acted as speed bumps. The road was slim and broken up by thick tree roots, but Gerald drove atop them not caring, enjoying the rocking of the car as he went along. He was in the middle of the power of nature. What stood around looked as if the trees and vines had enough of mankind and had begun to envelope all non-living structures with hearty green limbs. Rusted fences, telephone poles, even the abandoned railroad stop were slowly being taken back into Mother Nature’s selfish heart.

The earth beneath them suddenly grew sodden, slowing their car down. A need to urinate seized him. It had just crept up on him, and suddenly his bladder was ready to explode. He felt about to piss in the seat, so he made a quick halt to relieve himself. Harry still slept, his deafening snores enough to wake the neighboring town.

He stepped out of the car and felt the true soil of the south, thick like a warm tub of putty. It engulfed his feet, making each step he took a sucking pop. A wall of greenery tried to bar him from pissing with the privacy he wanted. Gerald pushed past the vines and ubiquitous shrubs. In the distance he thought he heard wail of police sirens whistle through the air.

Hidden behind the rectangle of fresh green vines, he saw a great and dead looking excuse for a house standing on a strip of sand. Dunes, black and vertical, lined the hilly area. There were no more shrubs in his way, just crab grass which bit at his legs like annoying horseflies. The wind blew eastward, toward the ocean, and he imagined he could smell the nearby odor of sun block and saltwater. Going closer to the weather beaten porch, Gerald noticed a pile of dead insects.

They crunched beneath his feet like hollowed vegetable bulbs, along with paint chips and more piles of starved insects. He tried to elude them like land mines but it was no use. His need to urinate was becoming ever more urgent, and Gerald walked closer, toward the dirty broken window at the end of the deck.

“Hello,” he said, peering into the lead-dark house.

Gerald had no time to flinch when the window exploded; a hand as grey as old metal punching through to grip his face, pulling him into a vortex of wood and glass. The fingers were strong and clammy, they held to Gerald’s face, refusing to ease up any bit. His shoes fell off as his feet dragged along the carpeted floor, and the hand shoved two bleach tasting fingers into his mouth and pulled him in further.

The house smelled of wet wood and disinfectant, the air musty like a sarcophagus. The attack ceased for one moment, the fingers slipped from Gerald’s mouth, and he made a break for it, his only chance, he felt, to run and escape. He managed to get two steps before he saw the glint of the scalpel swish through the air and dive into his Achilles tendon. The tendon split horizontally and hot blood painted his ankle as he fell to the floor.

He was dragged to another part of the house where the taste of metal in the air was strong. His heart felt like it wanted to punch itself out of his chest, catching his breathe was futile, his eyes blurred from the sweat dripping off his brow.

The big hand came back and punched him square in the stomach, pushing all the piss out of him. It streamed down his leg, stinging the wound on his ankle.

A new set of sounds commenced, then hands like they had just dipped into cake batter clawed at his navel, ripping away his shirt, opening the belt buckle of his jeans. Gerald could not see nor scream; the hands were many. Light broke into the little closet-like room as a third body came towards him. All three of them looked like giant apparitions. Then the biggest picked Gerald up, threw him over his shoulder, and dragged him out of the tiny room.

A lecherous tongue slithered across his ankle, lapping at his blood. Gerald lifted his head to see the face belonging to the tongue and saw two flailing, pale breasts, with two unhealthy black nipples like shriveled mushrooms. The girl stared at Gerald as he was carried further into the shadows of the next room, her pupils like spanning black holes.

The big man dropped him onto a table, bound his wrists with fishing line that cut deep into his skin, biting the colorful veins beneath. He struggled as blood pooled warmly into his palms.
It was then that Gerald knew he was going to die.

Harry, Gerald thought, some odd fraternal instinct worried him for his brother’s whereabouts. But before he could think anymore, a familiar voice cackled and recoiled throughout the entire house. It was a feminine smoker’s growl, and as if it was a command, the big man picked Gerald up and pressed him into the wall, as if he would rub him into wallpaper, licking at all the liquids on his skin.

“Momma, sis, come in ‘ere and get a load of this. Suppa’ come to us!” he called in a voice like a special needs child.

Gerald was trapped. The people wanted his body. The other two, momma and sis, came in, but the big man’s shinning bald head blocked Gerald’s full view of them. He thought he smelled a very familiar smell, but he couldn’t place it in all the commotion.

The big man twisted Gerald sideways and put him in a lock between his arm and torso, his skin felt like sandpaper to Gerald’s soft face. The man walked him into another room.

Gerald tried to escape, but the grip was like living prison bars. They moved into a kitchen where all the windows were painted black and everything seemed to gleam dully. The little girl came over to Gerald and bit down on his heal. An electric shock scurried up his leg. He moved it away and kicked the girl square in her hungry mouth, she shrieked.

She whined an indecipherable word salad; anger did not suit her well, and she didn’t know how to express it. She spat a set of teeth into her hands, drool following pale red in color, long and sticky like bloody snot. It squiggled down her chin in wavelets and fell off of her chin, smacking onto the kitchen floor. Her teeth fell too and she bent to pick them up, then sat upright, rigid, and smiled at Gerald with bleeding gums.

“Bo,” she slurred, “let’s eat.”

Bo nodded obsequiously and slammed Gerald down onto a table. Bo stretched his legs out as the young, ratty haired girl held his wrists. They buckled him in with leather straps, spread eagled on what seemed to be an operating table, as surgical lights glared down on him like a thousand rising suns. He closed his eyes and wished for death.

*****

The old woman woke Gerald up, pulled his eye lids apart, and sniffed his face with wide, white nostrils. Silver hair hung over her face like curling, dead maggots, and her smell of moth balls filled the air around him. Her eyes shone under the lamplight, the sugar-white of them was all Gerald needed to know that this was the same woman from the house he had received directions from. She smiled as his eyes met hers, and parted her lips to show him her wooden teeth.

She stroked two fingers down his slick sternum, her nails wiping away blood and sweat. She stopped at the point where his bone ended and soft flesh gave way to his stomach. She made two tiny circles and licked her lips; then she pushed through his skin with all her strength, cutting meat and fascia with her razor-sharp nails. Pain ripped through Gerald, tendrils of blue flame found his senses and forced a yelp from his mouth.

Breathing became a laborious task for Gerald as the woman’s fingers played around with his insides. She stopped when the young girl came in.

The girl whispered something to her momma and received a nod of approval. She jumped on the table and began to rake at Gerald’s chest as if it held the secrets to her survival. She ripped furrows deep into his flesh, creating shallow, scarlet motes. The surgical light above was splattered with the gore.

When she was satisfied, the girl used a straw to suck up the lifeblood his body so viciously offered to her. Then momma once again pushed two fingers into the hole she had made, forcing Gerald to explode with pain as dark as a bruise. She clenched her teeth and grinded them in mock of her soon to be meal; and, just as she finished fingering his guts, Bo came back in, drooling incessantly. His cleft lip had rendered saliva control useless, the few teeth he did have protruded from the hollow where his top lip should have been. They lay forward showing off his permanent, soulless smile.

In one hand was a razor blade, the other held what looked like a rusted potato peeler. The old woman signaled Bo with another one of her nods and he pulled a wet rag from his pocket and stuffed it into Gerald’s mouth. When that was done, Bo licked Gerald’s wounds, his tongue like a ravenous desert snake slithering across the puddles of red vitality on Gerald’s torso. His face became smeared in it.

He stopped at the nipple then, bit into the small meaty thing, and ripped it clean from Gerald’s chest. A mist of blood sprayed his face. Bo chewed on the tiny piece of flesh like a flavor packed piece of bubblegum. Sis came back too, declaring a vengeance for her lost teeth, and a hunger she seemed unable to resist.

“I know there are two of you,” she whispered into Gerald’s ear with hot rancid breathe. “Momma told me.”

The rusted peeler was now in her hands. It glittered under the surgical lamp like old copper. She felt for Gerald’s toes and went in for the attack like a vulture, peeling away layers of skin, clogging the weapon with innocent human flesh. Gerald yelled into his gag. If pain could be colors he would have seen them all already.

The girl continued with the blade as if she had done it before, many times before. She sliced skin from Gerald’s foot until it looked like a shimmering, thin red toy for a dog to chew upon; she gnawed on the exposed bone like rawhide. As the snap of his toe coming away from his body reverberated into Gerald’s ear drum, his mind was already going into a state of shock.

Before he could regain his breath, Bo’s unforgiving blade slit into the flesh of his groin. He carved a slick scarlet map from navel to scrotum. His fingers parted the fatty meat beneath. He sliced a flap off like fresh deli meat and ate it. A river of urine diluted the pool of blood at Gerald’s groin; he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Why don’t you just fucking kill me,” he squealed through his gag.

“Kill you?” The old woman asked. “If we kill you, how will we eat? My family never feasts on a meal in which the heart does not beat.”

Gerald had no time to flinch when the window exploded; a hand as grey as old metal punching through to grip his face, pulling him into a vortex of wood and glass. The fingers were strong and clammy, they held to Gerald’s face, refusing to ease up any bit. His shoes fell off as his feet dragged along the carpeted floor, and the hand shoved two bleach tasting fingers into his mouth and pulled him in further.

The house smelled of wet wood and disinfectant, the air musty like a sarcophagus. The attack ceased for one moment, the fingers slipped from Gerald’s mouth, and he made a break for it, his only chance, he felt, to run and escape. He managed to get two steps before he saw the glint of the scalpel swish through the air and dive into his Achilles tendon. The tendon split horizontally and hot blood painted his ankle as he fell to the floor.

He was dragged to another part of the house where the taste of metal in the air was strong. His heart felt like it wanted to punch itself out of his chest, catching his breathe was futile, his eyes blurred from the sweat dripping off his brow.

The big hand came back and punched him square in the stomach, pushing all the piss out of him. It streamed down his leg, stinging the wound on his ankle.

A new set of sounds commenced, then hands like they had just dipped into cake batter clawed at his navel, ripping away his shirt, opening the belt buckle of his jeans. Gerald could not see nor scream; the hands were many. Light broke into the little closet-like room as a third body came towards him. All three of them looked like giant apparitions. Then the biggest picked Gerald up, threw him over his shoulder, and dragged him out of the tiny room.

A lecherous tongue slithered across his ankle, lapping at his blood. Gerald lifted his head to see the face belonging to the tongue and saw two flailing, pale breasts, with two unhealthy black nipples like shriveled mushrooms. The girl stared at Gerald as he was carried further into the shadows of the next room, her pupils like spanning black holes.

The big man dropped him onto a table, bound his wrists with fishing line that cut deep into his skin, biting the colorful veins beneath. He struggled as blood pooled warmly into his palms.
It was then that Gerald knew he was going to die.

Harry, Gerald thought, some odd fraternal instinct worried him for his brother’s whereabouts. But before he could think anymore, a familiar voice cackled and recoiled throughout the entire house. It was a feminine smoker’s growl, and as if it was a command, the big man picked Gerald up and pressed him into the wall, as if he would rub him into wallpaper, licking at all the liquids on his skin.

“Momma, sis, come in ‘ere and get a load of this. Suppa’ come to us!” he called in a voice like a special needs child.

Gerald was trapped. The people wanted his body. The other two, momma and sis, came in, but the big man’s shinning bald head blocked Gerald’s full view of them. He thought he smelled a very familiar smell, but he couldn’t place it in all the commotion.

The big man twisted Gerald sideways and put him in a lock between his arm and torso, his skin felt like sandpaper to Gerald’s soft face. The man walked him into another room.

Gerald tried to escape, but the grip was like living prison bars. They moved into a kitchen where all the windows were painted black and everything seemed to gleam dully. The little girl came over to Gerald and bit down on his heal. An electric shock scurried up his leg. He moved it away and kicked the girl square in her hungry mouth, she shrieked.

She whined an indecipherable word salad; anger did not suit her well, and she didn’t know how to express it. She spat a set of teeth into her hands, drool following pale red in color, long and sticky like bloody snot. It squiggled down her chin in wavelets and fell off of her chin, smacking onto the kitchen floor. Her teeth fell too and she bent to pick them up, then sat upright, rigid, and smiled at Gerald with bleeding gums.

“Bo,” she slurred, “let’s eat.”

Bo nodded obsequiously and slammed Gerald down onto a table. Bo stretched his legs out as the young, ratty haired girl held his wrists. They buckled him in with leather straps, spread eagled on what seemed to be an operating table, as surgical lights glared down on him like a thousand rising suns. He closed his eyes and wished for death.

*****

The old woman woke Gerald up, pulled his eye lids apart, and sniffed his face with wide, white nostrils. Silver hair hung over her face like curling, dead maggots, and her smell of moth balls filled the air around him. Her eyes shone under the lamplight, the sugar-white of them was all Gerald needed to know that this was the same woman from the house he had received directions from. She smiled as his eyes met hers, and parted her lips to show him her wooden teeth.

She stroked two fingers down his slick sternum, her nails wiping away blood and sweat. She stopped at the point where his bone ended and soft flesh gave way to his stomach. She made two tiny circles and licked her lips; then she pushed through his skin with all her strength, cutting meat and fascia with her razor-sharp nails. Pain ripped through Gerald, tendrils of blue flame found his senses and forced a yelp from his mouth.

Breathing became a laborious task for Gerald as the woman’s fingers played around with his insides. She stopped when the young girl came in.

The girl whispered something to her momma and received a nod of approval. She jumped on the table and began to rake at Gerald’s chest as if it held the secrets to her survival. She ripped furrows deep into his flesh, creating shallow, scarlet motes. The surgical light above was splattered with the gore.

When she was satisfied, the girl used a straw to suck up the lifeblood his body so viciously offered to her. Then momma once again pushed two fingers into the hole she had made, forcing Gerald to explode with pain as dark as a bruise. She clenched her teeth and grinded them in mock of her soon to be meal; and, just as she finished fingering his guts, Bo came back in, drooling incessantly. His cleft lip had rendered saliva control useless, the few teeth he did have protruded from the hollow where his top lip should have been. They lay forward showing off his permanent, soulless smile.

In one hand was a razor blade, the other held what looked like a rusted potato peeler. The old woman signaled Bo with another one of her nods and he pulled a wet rag from his pocket and stuffed it into Gerald’s mouth. When that was done, Bo licked Gerald’s wounds, his tongue like a ravenous desert snake slithering across the puddles of red vitality on Gerald’s torso. His face became smeared in it.

He stopped at the nipple then, bit into the small meaty thing, and ripped it clean from Gerald’s chest. A mist of blood sprayed his face. Bo chewed on the tiny piece of flesh like a flavor packed piece of bubblegum. Sis came back too, declaring a vengeance for her lost teeth, and a hunger she seemed unable to resist.

“I know there are two of you,” she whispered into Gerald’s ear with hot rancid breathe. “Momma told me.”

The rusted peeler was now in her hands. It glittered under the surgical lamp like old copper. She felt for Gerald’s toes and went in for the attack like a vulture, peeling away layers of skin, clogging the weapon with innocent human flesh. Gerald yelled into his gag. If pain could be colors he would have seen them all already.

The girl continued with the blade as if she had done it before, many times before. She sliced skin from Gerald’s foot until it looked like a shimmering, thin red toy for a dog to chew upon; she gnawed on the exposed bone like rawhide. As the snap of his toe coming away from his body reverberated into Gerald’s ear drum, his mind was already going into a state of shock.

Before he could regain his breath, Bo’s unforgiving blade slit into the flesh of his groin. He carved a slick scarlet map from navel to scrotum. His fingers parted the fatty meat beneath. He sliced a flap off like fresh deli meat and ate it. A river of urine diluted the pool of blood at Gerald’s groin; he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Why don’t you just fucking kill me,” he squealed through his gag.

“Kill you?” The old woman asked. “If we kill you, how will we eat? My family never feasts on a meal in which the heart does not beat.”

“Then please let me go.”

“Tell me where your delicious brother is and we just might do that for you, I know there are two of you,” she said, her face a blur of brightness.

Gerald thought of that famous saying “desperate times call for desperate measures” and completely vouched for its truth. His will begged him not to tell, but his mouth had caught a pleading case of explosive diarrhea and he let the words spill free. They fell in sluices of selfish intent, the location of his car where his brother slept was given up. Bo ran out as soon as Gerald finished speaking.

Bo returned quickly, carrying Harry’s body. The big man had pulverized Harry’s face into a concavity of minced meat, and his arms and legs hung slack over Bo’s giant shoulders. Bo placed Harry on a table next to Gerald, his limbs hanging over the table like dead weight. In the Heat of the moment, Gerald became territorial over his brother, a love executed just too late to save him.

He yelled into his gag, but it was no use.

The cannibal family began to attack Harry, and Gerald prayed that his unconsciousness spared him the agony of their wicked fingers and multiple surgical instruments. The old woman scanned Harry’s face, pulled out the eyes and ate them like crushed grapes. Bo hovered over Harry’s body as well, a mess of black bruising and split open wounds. He was drawing in breath shallowly as the trio clawed at Harry’s body, hungry for meat, seemingly for his soul.

Then another blade lifted into the air, its serrated metal teeth a smile that only evil could love, and was inserted into the pale, tight flesh that covered Harry’s chest. From both shoulders, to sternum, to navel, Bo created a thin crimson Y. The skin parted wide between Bo’s prodding fingers. The women’s eyes were satiated with madness. Harry’s blood slapped against the tiled floor like marbles spilled over the roof of a car.

The woman handed Bo a chest spreader and he sawed into Harry’s sternum. He placed the sheers onto Harry’s chest and spread the handles to crack it open with the sound of crushed twigs. Up came warm, fleeting meat. Throbbing with angst Gerald scrambled on his table, but was subdued by an elbow to the temple from the old woman. Somehow, throughout it all, Harry’s heart was still miraculously beating, a slow thump-thump.

The threesome pecked at the exposed innards with vicious mouths, took jellied flesh from Harry’s body as if it was theirs to begin with. They held the colorful pieces to the surgical light so Gerald could see, then squished them into dark pulp in the palm of their hands, and let them drip into their mouths like delicious honey. The old woman took it upon herself to dig her face into the stew of cooling guts, drowning herself in the puddle of pleural fluids and organ seepage.

She bobbed her head as if searching for apples. The faint bubbling from her exhalation was all Gerald needed to hear to know that he was next, that he was going to suffer right along with his brother. At that sound of the fizzing like an opened bottle of soda, the other joined her. They clawed, bit, sucked, and chewed at Harry’s intestines. When the trio came up for breathe, a thick ring of gore had lined their lips like red lip-gloss.

The silvery glare of the scalpel came up again, and the youngest of the cannibals carved out the apex-meat of Harry’s heart. She scooped it out of her hands and found a dirty jar to put it inside, then filled it with rust smelling water. With his vision fading, Gerald tried to break free of his straps once again, but he felt as if they were pulling tighter, like a noose.

The old woman had separated Harry’s elbow from his arm. She licked the end of the bone-joint as if it were candy, chewing on the dangling white sinews like taffy. Harry took one last gulp of air that hung thick with rot. His consciousness swam downstream to a permanent paradise, the paradise he should have been at with his brother. The calm of sleep came and kidnapped his mind, taking it into a vortex of ephemeral black.




















































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