What does it mean to encounter the cosmically horrific? 

I cannot describe it in mere words, for any mortal to look upon it would melt to dust. It is that thing humanity cannot fathom, for it would twist our souls into knots. It would bend our minuscule minds into putty. We would lose ourselves in warped logic and imperceptive chaos, descending into the madness of insurmountable grief. 

That thing immeasurable, incalculable, inconceivable lies in wait. It resides here and there and everywhere. It is behind you, uncaring, merciless, unceasing. Its whims move mountains and destroy galaxies. 

It is life, death, chaos, order, and the majesty of the indifferent universe. It is cold, undulating, indescribably indiscernible. Where does it start and infinity end? It exists behind time, above all, below the depths. 

What is it to be observed by the crescent of totality, reflected upon the glossy globule of the all-seeing oculus? The abysmal abyss stares back unblinking. It knows us and soon will swat our reality as a dragon bats a gnat.

The truth eternal has plucked the last wet tear from my dry eye. It has struck its fatal blow upon my frail personage. I wither before the dark light of soul-splitting reality revealed.
The fear engulfed my mind in totality and trepidation consumed my physical vitality from the inside out. After this grave confrontation, I endure but briefly, long enough to warn the world, condemned by my hubris.

I burned my research. I destroyed my cosmometer, the sole apparatus constructed for observing existence beyond the dark veil. And yet the image of its dizzying sovereignty is seared into my retinas; even after the optical display was splintered into ten thousand tiny shards, it cannot escape my maddening mind’s eye.

This astrological knowledge has cost me my sanity, my virtue, my last living hope. I can no longer contain myself within this feeble mortal form. My shivering bones are splinters and dough.

Even now, as I scribble this cautionary address with trembling fingers, my eyes are bleeding out of their sockets, and I can feel my brain dissolving into gray sludge. In a matter of minutes, I will be reduced to a puddle of former matter.
​
Do not seek out the master of masters. All is vanity under its eye. I employ you, seek not the forbidden sight!

​Jonathan Reddoch is co-owner of Collective Tales Publishing. He is a father, writer, editor, and publisher. He writes sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and especially horror. He’s a prolific flash fiction author, but also writes poetry and short stories. He has been working on his enormous sci-fi novel for over a decade and would like to finish it in this lifetime if possible. He’s from southern California, but lives in Salt Lake City. Notable works included in Deluxe Darkness, Darkness 101: Lessons Were Learned, and This Isn’t the Place.
 
Find him on Instagram @JonathanReddochAuthor or CTPfiction.com

Greeta’s hollow eyes scraped across the darkening horizon until Jekobe nudged her aside so he could put the board back on the bathroom window.

“Wind is picking up,” he said.

She wilted to the floor and squeezed the clover-shaped locket around her neck. Greeta then pressed it to her lips to stifle a sob at the memory of what it once took from them and what it now wanted again.

Her little squeak drew Jekobe’s gaze down to his wife, on the floor curled around the base of their toilet. Husband and wife listened to silted winds drawing closer and to the radio choir on the other side of the bathroom door.

“You must get up.” His tone, as beaten as the bathroom with all its rust and dust and dirt, always the dirt.

She fought a dangerous impulse to toss the locket into the toilet and pretend it never lit up, never chose them. Chose her.

Jekobe extended a sooty hand. “It falls to you.”

She unfurled sloth-slow and set her hand in his—filth in filth, bones in bones. They worked in dirt, breathed in dirt, scrubbed it off their hands, washed it from their clothes. Some nights Jekobe shuddered awake to tell her of his nightmares about the dirt raining on their bed until it buried them. Greeta often imagined mud cakes filling her lungs.

“Blessings to the remainders,” she murmured as he pulled her to standing, eyes averted from the shiny aluminum locket and the pink glow spilling from its interior. Such a lovely color in a world devoid of colors, she’d thought when first it lit up, when she didn’t understand the significance of its glow. The Landlords encouraged mothers to place photos inside, but Greeta feared they might increase their odds of being chosen, so left it empty.

It chose them anyway.

“If I could take your burden, Greeta—”

A soft knock on the door startled them both.

“Obie needs to wee,” came the voice of Judeeth, their eldest.

Greeta yanked her arm free from Jekobe. “Just a moment.” The draw of her thin shoulders laid bare her misery, but her face settled into a neutral expression. She tucked stray hairs behind pins and tucked the locket into the bodice of her housedress.

“I will not choose,” she said.

Quick as a bog ghoul, Jekobe seized her shoulders. “We are not so proud we don’t obey.”

She slapped his face, leaving a handprint in the grime. “Understood.”

Greeta opened the door and entered the living area, a space without embellishment. A table for eating, chairs for sitting, the Text for learning, and radio for music and worship. Her children had gathered around the radio. Five-year-old Obie, aiming his glorious dimples at her, danced from foot to foot. “‘‘mergency, momma! ‘mergency!”

“Obie, you may go now.” Greeta tousled his unruly hair as he zipped by, bare feet slapping the floorboards until he slammed the bathroom door closed behind him.

Her gaze fell on her older children. Sixteen-year-old Judeeth, a beauty with raven hair and hazel eyes—they kept her hidden from the carnal attentions of the Landlords. Tomash had grown tall and strong enough to work alongside his poppa. Luzzi, a miraculously plump mischief-maker who read the Texts with fluency at eight years old, finished winding her yarn ball and set it in the basket.

“Momma, are you sick?” Judeeth asked.

“She’s better now,” Jekobe answered. “Right, Momma?”

Greeta put on a smile. But her womb pulsed rhythmically as memories of the children’s first steps, first words, the joy and mess of their arrivals—even poor Kellan’s—flew through her head like a picture show.

Then the gate outside squeaked open.

“Who wants to play a game?” Jekobe asked the kids. His face beamed with theatrical enthusiasm.

“Let’s wait for Obie,” Judeeth said.

Not my baby, thought Greeta.

Porch stairs whined under a great weight followed by a dragging noise advancing to the door. The family stood rooted to their floor. Waiting.

Every creek brought Greeta visions of Kellan, poor Kellan—eyes dark with terror and betrayal, the shriek that never escaped his mouth...

Jekobe clapped his hands. “The game has begun! Isn’t it thrilling?”

Each child cast a suspicious glare at the door.

“Exciting, yes, Momma?” Jekobe’s eyes bored into Greeta’s until she nodded.

Tomash switched off the radio. Its silence amplified the thrum of blustering wind, and worse: a host of sharp objects raking back and forth across the door.

Winds circled the house, rattled the walls. Tomash and Luzzi clung together. Judeeth rose from her chair, head pivoting between the flush of the toilet and pounding so forceful the front door bulged inward.

Greeta’s sternum grew hot as the locket came more fully alive.

Jekobe’s lips pressed into Greeta’s ear. “Let us be clean, Greeta.”

Another reel whirred to life, this one showing the times when the children were proud or disobedient. Judeeth’s defiance. Luzzi’s mischief. Tomash bullying his sisters. Obie’s—no. She refused to see Obie.

“Momma,” Jekobe prompted in a cheerful voice. “The children wish to play the game.”

“We do not, Father.” Judeeth’s voice rose an octave.

Judeeth always questions our authority.

Greeta pressed the burning locket against her chest until her wound reopened. “Judeeth, will you open the door, my love?”

“No, Momma.”

“Open the door, Judeeth.”

Her eldest stamped her boots, eyes ablaze with defiance. “I do not wish to play. Luzzi does not wish to play, Tomash does not—”

“I do! I do!” Obie toddled to the door, and before Greeta or Jekobe could react, his grubby little hand swung it open.

In a great roar of weather, of hunger, of violent extinction, of a feeble little scream muted by the churning dirt, Greeta’s heart broke and her chest erupted in flame.

Night breeds a certain animal, made more beast than man. One made with eyes glued to a television screen. One made with a long pointy nose and jagged teeth.

He stalks the night, never once seeing his prey, blind as he is from anything outside his screen. He uses his nose to sniff out perfumed vanilla, cinnamon, and his favorite of all, lavender.

His victims never hear him approach as they are deaf from everything outside their headphones, nor do they feel his touch until it's too late—until they’re dragged through the night, and he’s feasted once more.

But there is one small creature who sees all and hears most. It is the darkness that lives within the walls, the life that breathes through the dirt. It is the all-seeing thing of the world, hidden within plain sight.
​
It knows our secrets but never speaks. It sees our pain but never helps. Its actions aren’t of malice, yet when the weak cry out in the night, it stays still, watching the beast in the shadows. Watching and waiting for a new day to come. For a day where screens break and delicate women become fierce. 

What is it that they have? The Eyes I mean
They have seeds, petals, and a missing spleen

The Eyes have incantations of all kinds
These Eyes have the magics to hide their minds

The Eyes have the sight to mar our souls
The Eyes have the will to cross the coals

Are they merely men or are they visionaries?
Were they truly expelled from the land of fairies?

What glories they’ve seen with eyes closed
Horrors witnessed while the world dozed…
​
What is this power they wield over me?
What have Eye done so I’ll never be free?

​Jonathan Reddoch is co-owner of Collective Tales Publishing. He is a father, writer, editor, and publisher. He writes sci-fi, fantasy, romance, and especially horror. He’s a prolific flash fiction author, but also writes poetry and short stories. He has been working on his enormous sci-fi novel for over a decade and would like to finish it in this lifetime if possible. He’s from southern California, but lives in Salt Lake City. Notable works included in Deluxe Darkness, Darkness 101: Lessons Were Learned, and This Isn’t the Place.
 
Find him on Instagram @JonathanReddochAuthor or CTPfiction.com

The rain slashes down. She’s cold, adrift amongst it. At least it is night, she thinks, the blanket of which hides more than my sadness. Standing there, naked, drained, she’s relieved she left her front door off the latch, ever hopeful he’ll return. The amber-dandelion glow of a streetlamp helps her locate the handle. She pushes the door open, runs upstairs.

The bathroom light does not click on. It is forever broken. So, in habit, she sets a-glow a corner candle. Familiarity guides her, fits her like a glove. She is not one for change. The shower above the bathtub however, does click on. The thrum of hissing water softens her sobs. Tears, fuggy air, soupy mist. She steps into the bath, under the hot water, closes her eyes, rests her back against the tiled wall. Warmth embraces her. Hot jets, the only arms around her since he left. Impossible, yet infinite drive propels her on, keeps her head above the ever-rising water. There’s the possibility one day he might return, is why she always leaves the door off the latch: he might push the door open and run upstairs, save her from the darkness.

Under the rushing water, her gold band is loose enough for her to free her finger, but she is not ready for her finger and the ring to become two separate entities, never will be. She holds her ring on, closes her eyes, cries, fights off the lick of jaded thoughts, despite knowing her situation won’t change. In dreams, she feels the same, although she’s no longer sure if waking time is waking time or if all of her time is part of a dream, even in this account of it all, written by the woman as if she is not the woman. She and I remain unsure.
He’d placed his wedding band on the kitchen counter the day he ended things, left without a goodbye. Left a note with his ring. Her heart had flooded with midnight pain. The dark note still sits under his ring. Will stay there forever. She knows though, through his actions, he’d ended things much earlier than that day. His path had split off, a tangent, some time before. He’d not wanted to spend a moment longer with her despite, in vows, promising eternity.

She opens her eyes and the ghosts of the darkness loom. She reaches for the blade to cut free the darkness. No need. Oestrogen surge. Gushing water once transparent, clouds. Vermillion tongues trickle down her thigh. She tilts her head back. Relief. Wet heat pounds her face, drags her cheek flesh down. Sadness and red rinse away.

The ceiling light flickers on-off. In that moment, she sees the screw which has become loose, which anchors the light fitting to the ceiling above the shower in which she’ll forever try to wash away. Could it be the loose screw why she wets her red self clean? Why she leaves the door off the latch, hopeful he might return?

She steps out. Rust-water drip-drops from her body. Pitter-patter, across the landing, she retrieves the ladder which he’d said was only for the loft.

Drags the ladder, props it up, ascends. She reaches up, touches the fitting, tries to fix it. It comes away in her hand. New hope whispers from the space left behind. She stretches down, balances the fitting on the basin, then, gripping the ladder, climbs further up.

With hands and arms and bones and muscles that feel every inch of tiredness from her endless, circular toil, she pulls herself up into the future space which calls to her, behind the fitting, below the roof.

One, two, three candle-lit steps below become smaller. She lugs herself up into the vent, the vent in the loft which he had said the ladder was for, the ladder with infinite rungs, rungs of a journey never to conclude.

She squeezes herself through the dark channel, a liminal freedom between ceiling and loft she did not know existed yet, at the back of her mind, always knew existed. She bends forward, over, moves. On hands and knees, in the absence of light, she crawls along the vent until she sees a dim glow ahead, senses it with her pineal. A gold sphere, a noise of almost-light calls to her, speaks promises of eternity, shines at the end of the tunnel in the vent. She lowers herself down and through this wet ring of gold to discover the ring is the glow of a dim streetlamp. Feet shirk on wet grass. She finds herself outside of her house, not too far from her front door, which she has left unbolted in the hope that one day, he might come home.

The rain slashes down. She’s cold, adrift amongst it. At least it is night, she thinks, the blanket of which hides more than my sadness. Standing there, naked, drained, she’s relieved she left her front door off the latch, ever hopeful he’ll return. The amber-dandelion glow of a streetlamp helps her locate the handle. She pushes the door open, runs upstairs.
The bathroom light does not click on. It is forever broken. So, in habit, she sets a-glow a corner candle. Familiarity guides her, fits her like a glove. She is not one for change. The shower above the bathtub however, does click on. The thrum of hissing water softens her sobs. Tears, fuggy air, soupy mist. She steps into the bath, under the hot water, closes her eyes, rests her back against the tiled wall. Warmth embraces her. Hot jets, the only arms around her since he left. Impossible, yet infinite drive propels her on, keeps her head above the ever-rising water. There’s the possibility one day he might return, is why she always leaves the door off the latch: he might push the door open and run upstairs, save her from the darkness. 

SJ Townend, an author of dark fiction, has stories published with Vastarien, Ghost Orchid Press, Gravely Unusual Magazine, Dark Matter Magazine, and Timber Ghost Press. Her first horror collection, Sick Girl Screams, is out Winter, 2024 (Brigid’s Gate Press) and her second horror collection, Your Final Sunset, is coming in 2025 (Sley House Press). Twitter:@SJTownend

www.sjtownend.com 

“What do you remember?”

It was what they asked. Teacher, Scientist, Mother. The same testing question, always.
Heads bowed, we stared at our desks. We didn’t understand why, but we knew the question was dangerous.

“I... I remember...” a voice crept out from my left and I screwed my eyes shut.

“Yes, Tommy?” the Teacher coaxed.

The classroom held its breath.

“I remember... there were more of us.”

There was a long silence. “No, Tommy. You are mistaken. That is enough school for today. Your Mothers are waiting.”

We filed out into the corridor, ashamed, silent, eyes fixed on the heels of the boy in front.
There were only eleven Mothers.

Tommy’s wasn’t there.

Tommy was right though. There had been more. The empty desks hadn’t always been empty, even if I couldn’t remember the older boys who had sat there.

There would be another empty desk tomorrow. I promised myself I would remember his name.
And his lesson.

Tommy had remembered something you weren’t supposed to notice. And that had been enough.
Back home, Mother sat me down, lowered herself to my level.

“What do you remember, Alex?” she asked.

Worms writhed in my stomach. In the classroom, you could hide behind the other boys, wait for one of them to fill the void with a safe, recent, memory.

“What do you remember?” Mother insisted.

But when they asked you a direct question, there was no escape. You had to find an answer. One that kept Mother happy.

Only, I remembered so much more than I should. I remembered before.

I remembered a sister; a smiling, sleeping, crying baby sister.

I remembered a moon, as well as a sun.

I remembered trees, and grass, and birds.

And I remembered my mother. My real mother.

Delicate purple fronds emerged from the tip of Mother’s arm, wiping away the tears as I sobbed. Fleshy pads tilted my chin until I met her glittering eyes. And a hushed voice whispered in my ear:
​
“What do you remember?”

​Liam Hogan is an award-winning short story writer, with stories in Best of British Science Fiction and in Best of British Fantasy (NewCon Press). He helps host live literary event Liars’ League and volunteers at the creative writing charity Ministry of Stories. More details at http://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk

What a strange twist of fate.

I often thought about what our reunion would be like when I was young. Before the darkness. I never imagined it to be like this.

Her on my table. Pale. Cold. Unmoving.

Me with a scalpel in hand and the darkness rising in my throat. Hungry.

If I could still feel, I wonder what might be going through me at the sight of her after so many years. What would a normal person feel?

Anger? She left me. Anger seems a reasonable response.

Sadness? She was my mother after all.

Or indifference?

I’ve managed without her for all these years. She was gone before and she’s gone now. Nothing has changed.

But it’s about to.

The demon I carry in the emptiness that is my soul slithers across my tongue, coats my teeth and squirms to free itself from my shut lips.

It’s time. It can’t wait any longer.

My scalpel slides into her neck and slips down her torso in a long red line. I cut. Then peel muscle and skin aside, exposing her ribcage.

My work is methodical, precise. She may have been my mother, but at this moment it makes no difference. A body is a body.

Bones crunch and crack, the rib cutter doing its work, laying bare the organs I seek.

Darkness thickens in my mouth, threatening to spill out or block my airways as it bloats. Hungry. Impatient.

First, I remove the liver. I lift it with both hands and I finally let the demon out.

It coils around her dead flesh like inky tendrils in one moment and a cloud of black smoke in the next. It consumes all there is—meat, fluids, and the mistakes of her past that she had locked away.

We have a deal. It gets to eat, and I get to feel again.

But maybe this time is different. It’s my mother after all.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

The demon doesn’t care.

It undulates in the air, taunting me. It knows I need this as much as it needs me.
Without feelings, what am I?

I reach out and let the darkness return. And with it, it brings my mother’s memories and emotions.

I see my father. At a bar. A drunken night of fun. Something I wouldn’t care to see, but caring is something I no longer do.

Except for now.

Now I feel what my mother felt. Stupidity. A mistake. Something she would have undone if she could have.

The vision ends and the darkness swirls around me like the fresh memories within.

It’s hungry. Waiting for its next meal.

But I’m seething, grinding my teeth.

I’m a mistake.

The truth I always feared has been revealed. She didn’t want me. Didn’t love me. She left and turned me into what I am today. An empty vessel for darkness. Nothing else.

The emotions fade as they always do, and I am left aching for more. As is the darkness.

Next are the kidneys, filled with all the pressures she felt, the things that became too much for her to handle. I already know what’s coming.

I see myself screaming. I’m a baby. A little girl. A loud kid that causes chaos and never rests. Something she could never get a grip on.

A part of me wants to stop. I don’t need these emotions. Anyone but hers.

But the demon needs her insides. And we have a deal, so I keep cutting.

Next are the lungs, black and brown. Cause of death.

They hold her regrets. Her first pack of cigarettes and me, I assume.

The darkness feasts and I prepare myself.

I see our house through a car window. It’s raining. Her hand moves to the door. Stops. She stares at the house and turns on the ignition. She looks back in the rearview mirror as she drives away.

Breath catches in my throat. Her regret is mine in this very moment. I suck in big gulps of air. What have I done? What did she do? Why? Why did she leave me?

My breathing doesn’t steady. I wait for her emotions to leave me, but something is different. There’s a crack inside of me where a wall stands tall and strong.

I always thought I was empty, but maybe there’s more inside of me than I ever knew.

The dark cloud shifts impatiently. It’s waiting for its little morsels of flesh.

Without precision or care, I cut out the bits and pieces that are too insignificant to hold any emotions: gallbladder, spleen, pancreas. They don’t matter.

As the darkness snatches them up, I go for the heart. Carefully, I slice through the aorta and free this big muscle of hers from her now empty chamber.

I hesitate. But only for a moment.

Then I offer her heart to the darkness. It wraps around, devouring all.

My chest tightens and I don’t know what to expect, what to feel. Emotions that had lain dormant for so long tingle inside of me.

I’m uncertain. I’m hopeful. I’m angry. I’m afraid.

The darkness finished its meal; it creeps up my arms and hovers before my eyes.

I see myself in the distance. Across the street. In a cafe. On a bench. Through all ages of my life.

And I feel sorrow. Pain. Regret. Fear.

And love.

My mother loved me.

She left me, but she never stopped loving me.

The darkness floats above me and I open my mouth out of habit. It’s time for it to return. It’s had its fill.

But it doesn’t come.

I look down at my mother’s corpse as tears sting my eyes. The wall I had built to protect myself is crumbling to pieces.

I blink up at the demon I carried within me for so long and watch it dissipate. There’s no room for it inside of me anymore.

I’m no longer empty.

There’s a box in the ground. It’s about five and a half feet long, three feet wide, and one foot deep. I’m in it.

You walk overhead. I can feel the slight tremors through the mud. You can’t hear my screams and the pounding of my fists against the wood. Or at least, I assume you can’t.

Maybe you can hear something; a muffled beat, a tiny shudder. But whatever you hear, it doesn’t make you want to hang around. So you go on. Your pace quickens. It’s ok, I understand. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. Still, I give another cry for help as your tremors become more and more faint and then nothing.

My voice is almost deafening. The noise gets bounced around the space and sucked back into me. I’ve become extra sensitive to sound since being in here; every vibration from up there, every creature scurrying around the dirt, every drip that makes it through, I hear and feel it all.

My touch is more sensitive too. I’ve mapped out every rough contour of this wooden prison as best as its restrictive shape will allow.

I’ve fainted three times at least. I did surprisingly well before the first time. But the minutes between faintings are fast decreasing. The air is heavy and hot like an earthy sauna.
I muster up the strength to hit my ceiling a few times more. But the dull thuds give no sign that I’m getting anywhere. Someone needs to get me out. I heard that in times of crisis, some people are capable of physical feats that are otherwise impossible. Some survival instinct gives us momentary superpowers. Well, I didn’t have that when I woke up and I certainly don’t now. I need help. Morse code crosses my mind, but if no-one can hear the thumps, then how would they notice the rhythm?

Then I hear the tiniest of scrapes to the left of my head. I swivel my neck a little. Another scrape. Slightly louder. The flick of a leg? There’s definitely something there. If there’s a gap for a bug then there’s a place to aim for. I can’t quite roll onto my front, my shoulder hits the roof at a 45 degree angle, but I turn to search in the darkness better.

There is a pinprick of a hole. And something tickles my fingertip. A tiny leg or bug’s antenna. A pang of hope. This is the place to aim for with the metal zip on my jeans. This will be how I exert my last remaining energy before I pass out again.

I pull my trousers down to my knees and then use my feet to shimmy them down the rest of the way. The movement is making my breaths deeper and the thick air feels like liquid seeping into my lungs. Sweat trickles down my forehead. I desperately start jamming the small metal point of the zipper into the corner, praying to a God I’ve never believed in to let the wood give way. I shove and stab and scrape with wild desperation, more sweat pouring from me.

I think I’m getting somewhere; the hole has widened to about a centimetre. Whatever was wiggling there has gone. Whatever saviour that was.

I stick the zip into the gap and saw back and forth, stopping every few seconds to clean the mud away. It widens to an inch, and I fervently continue until the zip wears down to the denim. I scratch and pull as best I can with my fingers. I barely feel the blood but I can smell it.

The gap in the box is now a gash and I suck in air through my nose, scared to open my mouth to the mud. I get my palms through but now I’m drowning in mud and my eyes are closing against my will and I know I’m about to faint, possibly for the last time. A last reserve of adrenaline rushes through me and I think that I’m getting that moment of superhuman power. There’s a loud crunch as some of the wood snaps, but the mud is the new wall I’m fighting against, a crushing wave that’s all around me. It makes me think that the God I never believed doesn’t want me to get out of here. I shove my face through the hole and embrace the mud piling against me.

Some new strange movement within the compacting dirt gives me cause for renewed fear as I continue pushing against the boards to get my shoulders out. Trying to breathe lightly through my nose so as not to eat any dirt, I swivel slightly and get an arm free of the wood; I push a hand up to my face to find the source of the movement that is getting closer and closer. I touch something that moves, a thick bulbous body half the size of my palm and eight flailing legs.

I scream a silent scream and the relentlessly compacting dirt shifts like concrete and forces the spider into my mouth and its legs fight desperately to climb over my sodden tongue and luckily I start to pass out for the final time before I taste it too much and I know that the God I never believed in sent me here for one reason and there’s no time left for redemption. 

Daniel Paton has had short fiction published in multiple anthologies and online literary journals and also writes screenplays and stage plays. Having completed his Creative Writing MA, he looks to work on new projects including a debut novel. 
 
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B09QQMH3Z
Instagram Account: @danielpaton96