BLORTHOX IN THE CLUTCHES OF LOVE by Jamie Grefe

Blorthox of Lir, slams his blood-drenched battle-axe into the skull of Selinda, Priestess of the Owldoom Temple. He splats into brain, sending clumps of grey globs from her opened face. Her white arms twist. She collapses.

His love, the object of his pursuit and heir to the throne of Blug, Vhonea, dangles by bound wrists over a vat where a black vampire squid thrashes in hunger. Her naked legs dangle.

Blorthox strides closer. He follows the rope to a lever, and he throws his battle-axe aside, wiping Selinda’s brain bits from his flowing locks. The resolve of victory steams his loins. Then, it happens.

Gardon, Protector of Arzagugoroth, smashes in the Temple door, sends it skidding and slipping into the abysmal Pit.

Another strand pops. Vhonea’s body inches down. She yelps.    

But why, thinks Blorthox, has Gardon chosen to appear here at the Owldoom Temple at this, the moment of my epic devotion to Vhonea?

And Gardon, bone sword unsheathed, stammers for words, grunts, readies himself for murder.

There is a silence deeper than the wisdom of Squalchor the Squandering Magus.

Vhonea jolts down another notch.

One thread remains.

Blorthox dashes to the wheel, wrenches at it with the strength of an undead battalion of pig witches.     

“You shouldn’t be here, Gardon,” he says.

“For the love and hand of Vhonea am I here, Blorthox. She has used the spell of love's cry, summoned me to—”

A Lir-taught laser-stream shoots from the electrified eyes of Blorthox to his axe. The stream hits, coating the weapon in sheer white. The battle-axe shoots off the floor, and sails straight into Gardon’s juicy guts. He grunts. Blood cascades. Final thoughts: Oblivion.

Blorthox howls. It obliterates Gardon’s body, raining down gouts of blood, bone, and gore, a summer rain, smothering the room in sloppy red chunks.

“How many times have I told you?” he says, “you will never leave me, Vhonea. Not for an army of undead leeches, a horde of bloodthirsty Arghs, and especially not for an unworthy son-of-a-corpse like Gardon the Saboteur, here.”

With that, he wrenches the wheel, sending Vhonea flying out of the pit. Her body flops limp in the corner.

 “Our love has miles to go.” 

SEVEN VARIATIONS ON THE RAPTURE by Nigel Anthony Sellars

The Rapture first occurred on a Monday. On Tuesday, people noticed all the Jews—reform, conservative, and orthodox alike—had vanished.

The Rapture re-occurred on a Tuesday.  Wednesday, all the world’s Muslims had disappeared.

The Rapture occurred a third time on a Wednesday.  By Thursday no one could locate the freethinkers and atheists.

The Rapture occurred again on Thursday.  By Friday, not a single dog remained on Earth.

On Friday, the Rapture took all the non-human primates.  Saturday the dolphins were nowhere to be found.

Sunday, the faithful fearfully gathered in their places of worship.  A massive solar flare took eight minutes to reach the earth.  No one was saved. 

The aliens knew the earth would be uninhabitable for several centuries.  It would take that long to find a new home for those they had collected.  They remained confident, however, that they had preserved the only other intelligent beings in the universe.  Was it worth the effort?  Only time would tell, and it wasn’t talking.

HEAT WAVE by Nigel Anthony Sellars

The fat man struggled.  The desert air rippled.  His dogs barked when at last he pitched forward and died.  They licked their black lips.  At least they would not starve.

SPLASH FICTION by John H. Dromey

“How was your date with the mermaid?”

“It was a full-scale disaster from beginning to end. She had anchovy breath, her dishpan hands went clear up to her shoulders, she had to be carried everywhere we went, and her dorsal fin was downright dangerous.”

Henry held up a bandaged finger.

Burt shook his head. “Rosalie works in an aquatic show on the Vegas strip and that’s a long, long way from the ocean. You know she’s not a real mermaid, don’t you?”

“Try telling her that. She showed up in full costume and stayed in character all night long.”

“So?”

“So, the only place we could get into was a topless bar. She drank like a fish, ran up a huge bar bill, and then she wouldn’t go back to my hotel room with me.”

“Why not? Did she say you weren’t her type?”

“No, she claimed to have a headache of Titanic proportions, but I didn’t believe her.”

“Why not?”

“She may have had a headache, but not for the reason she gave me.”

“Which was?”

“She told me she was doing a front crawl without paying attention to where she was going and accidentally collided with an iceberg.”

RESPECT YOUR ELDERS Linda M. Crate

The house creaked with annoyance. No one had lived in him for several years. His floorboards were almost rotten straight through, and teenagers always wanted to spend nights in him for they seemed under the false impression that he was haunted or there were some vampire locked in one of his closets. This wasn’t too bad, the teenagers he really hated were the ones that threw rocks through his windows or the ones that thought it was necessary to rip siding off of him.

He didn’t think they would like it if someone tore their precious flesh from their limbs!

There were vines growing through some of his floorboards, their were frogs in the kitchen sink, and raccoons in the bathtub. The kitchen table was full of half-empty tea cups littered with dandelion embryos and tadpoles.

His gardens were overgrown with thistles and thorns. He really wished that Mrs. Handiskill hadn’t died. She had been the only one that cared for him, truly. She had always trimmed the shrubs, replaced his siding, and painted the house. She had been a very kind woman, but she was an elderly lady that had passed on in her sleep.

After her death no one bothered coming inside — as if he held some curse.

Now he was just the laughing stock of the village. A relic of times past that no one would rip down for they enjoyed the memories, but none of them wanted to take in his musty smell. Even the teenagers that dwelled in his chambers for a night complained that he stank of something awful. It wasn’t as if he could give himself a bath or shower like they could!

One night when the owls were unmercifully loud and the humans were incessantly nagging, he found himself losing his temper completely.

A human had thrown several stones breaking four of his eyes. He hadn’t appreciated the ribbons of glass that obliterated his oak epicenter. The boy proceeded to be unruly, shattering more glass in other rooms. It was then that the house made his move.

The boy didn’t even see the wooden tongue that shot out until it was too late. He jerked and struggled, but the old house was stronger than he looked. He burped, ignoring the boy’s screams. Yes, this was the only way to deal with irreverent hooligans.