CARNAGE HOUSE

Explosión Trágica y Espectacular

by Phoebe A. Xavier

Herbert wants to get out of the messy business of being a shrink.

2456 Terran Standard

Exo Oort Colony - Tyche City

During his short tenure in the field of psychotherapy, Herbert the Walrus found one particular patient to be a bit of a challenge.

Part of it was that Javier was completely forthcoming, perhaps to a fault. He was also prone to graphic expleti

My Putrid Valentine

by Violaine De Charnage

Ever been gagged with a used bloody sanitary pad?

Translated by Basile Lebret

Monica shoos the big emerald green fly with a sleight of hand. The Calliphoridae flies away before coming back to the cup of tea.

Dear Diary,

It is a pleasure to come back, to confess my emotions and my wild

Carmen

by E.K. Charny

It’s not a bad habit. I can stop any time I want.

CARMEN HAS A HORRIBLE HABIT of eating her skin. On the bus home, she clenches her teeth between thin layers of her inner lip. When her hands are free, she brings them to her mouth without hesitation.

It is not a nervous tic. Carmen knows, if she wants to stop, she can.

The other girls have such soft skin. Thei

Absolutely Knot

by Winona Morris

Behind the white picket fence, something was unraveling.

MARRIAGE WAS EVERY WOMAN’S end game. From the time she slid wet and screaming from the warm, tearing doorway of her mother into her father’s waiting arms, every woman was preparing to be a wife.

Claire never learned any different. She spent her time between birth and marriage practicing. She learned how to cook,

Savage Mountain

by Nikki Durbin

Pride comes before the fall.

MARCH 8

I’m not stupid. Far from it. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find someone smarter than me. That’s why I’m writing this diary. When I get out of this fucking crevasse, I’m gonna take it and publish it. A tale of survival, told in real time! And I AM goi

Catch a Hot One

by Phoenix Mendoza

Welcome to the kingdom of the flies.

THE FLIES MET in the cornfields, in a hollow they’d crunched down between rows. They called it their clubhouse, but it wasn’t a house or even a shack—just an open-air clearing with a cooler that doubled as a card table and some ratty, sun-bleached lawn chairs they sat in like thrones while us new recruits knelt in the

Pigmalion

by Rosie Shrike

The perfect girl is one click away.

CONNOR SAT POISED ON his Secretlab chair like a disenchanted Roman emperor, staring disdainfully at his glowing monitors.

He glowered at the screeching female streamer in the highlight video. For one, she was too fat. She was also peppy, disgustingly so, bouncing in an effort to look attractive and babbling over the

Hereditary

by Jay C. Alexander

Smoking kills.

FIRST, YOU LOSE YOUR GUT. That fat you had been trying to burn for months disappears, and you feel lighter than ever, even though there’s now a small lump right under your diaphragm. It looks cute. A few years later—maybe sooner if you’re lucky enough—you’re breathless after climbing up a flight of stairs. Beautif

Violent Content

by Adam Hunter

Pain and pleasure mix together on the screen of your computer.

THE SOLDIER FIRED HIS plasma rifle. Sweat glistened on his cheeks above the collar of his blue-and-grey European Army Corps uniform. His eyes were wide, babyish, visible markers of his prayers to see his mother. He ran through the sand, kicking up clouds of dust.

The desert extended in all directions, smothered und