George Gad Economou

Guilt Trip

sitting on my couch,
a bottle of Four Roses in my hand.
Emily next to me.
“how are you?” she asks.
“better now that you’re here.”
“heard you’re working now. escaped
the cooking and selling drugs business.”
“I did,” I say with regret. “I’m a 9 to 5 guy
now. minimum wage bullshit, trying to
survive paycheck to paycheck.”
“why?”
“because it made no sense cooking glass and rock anymore.
it stopped being fun after a while. besides, I wasn’t
making money out of it, I was blowing it all on
heroin and booze.”
“you could have quit using, stayed with cooking.”
“what’s the point? the point is getting high and having fun.
otherwise, it’s just a job like any other.”
“you’ve always hated the idea of working.”
“I still do. it’s why I always quit, or force them to fire me.”
“why do you do it then?”
“because I refuse to live under a bridge, yet.”
“there’s someone new in your life, isn’t there?”
“maybe.”
“is she nice?”
“she’s quite nice, yes.”
“are you in love with her?” some resentment entered her voice.
“no,” I said truthfully.
“do you love her?”
“no. and definitely not the way I loved you.”
“you need to move on.”
“never.”
“you must.”
“would you? if the situation was reversed?”
“probably not. but you’d want me to.”
“I would.”
“then?”
“I can’t.”
“you must.”
without thinking, I lean over and try to kiss her.
she evaporates and I’m stuck with nothing but
a half-empty bottle of Four Roses and the memory of an
acid trip gone bad.

Richard Dulgheriu

The Saddest Person in the Queue

The queue at Lidl
is fucking enormous.
In my basket:
one cheap bottle
of bourbon.
I came in for food.
Changed my mind
somewhere between
the bakery
and the alcohol aisle.
“Next.”
Beep.
“Cash or card?”
The cashier
keeps chewing her gum.
The old woman
in front of me
can’t hear her.
“Cash or card, ma’am?”
Nothing.
She opens her purse
and starts counting coins.
Slowly.
One by one.
People behind me sigh.
I look at her basket.
Bread.
Milk.
Two tins of soup.
Then I look at mine.
Bourbon.
For some reason,
I’m no longer
the saddest person
in the queue.

Alex S. Johnson

Anchor Points in the Dark: A Conversation with Tim Waggoner

Tim Waggoner enters a conversation already carrying the weight and velocity of a long career in horror. The facts alone sketch a formidable silhouette: he has published over 60 novels and 8 collections of short stories, and his work ranges across original dark fantasy and horror, as well as media tie‑ins. His accolades form their own architecture—four‑time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, two‑time winner of the Scribe Award, two‑time finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and one‑time finalist for the Splatterpunk Award.

He teaches creative writing and composition as a full‑time tenured professor at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio, and his papers are archived by the University of Pittsburgh’s Horror Studies Program. His media‑tie‑in work includes titles like Halloween Kills, a fact he acknowledges with the same calm tone he uses for everything else—no bravado, just the steady presence of someone who has done the work and continues to do it.

This is the foundation from which he speaks: not theory, not abstraction, but lived craft. When he talks about writing, he does so with the clarity of someone who has spent decades refining the mechanics until they gleam.

“A lot of beginning writers write from the perspective of an audience member,” he told me. “They’re so used to movies and TV shows, where you just sit and watch something on a screen, other people doing things.” He brushed the idea aside gently, the way a teacher does when correcting a misconception he’s encountered a thousand times.

“But when you write, imagine that you’re one of the actors. If you’re writing a scene about Jason, you’re Jason walking through the woods.”

That shift—from watching to inhabiting—became the pulse of our conversation. Horror, for Waggoner, is not spectacle. It’s embodiment. It’s the irrational detail that rises in a crisis, the stray thought that reveals the human mind under pressure.

“I almost drowned when I was nine,” he said. “I had just gotten glasses, and I was afraid my glasses would fall off in the water… My parents would be mad.” He laughed at the absurdity. “It’s the most ridiculous thing to think of… but you think of weird random stuff like that.”

From there he moved into one of the most elegant metaphors I’ve ever heard for building a vivid fictional world. “I have this concept I made up… I call anchor points,” he said. “Like the old‑fashioned tents—wooden stakes and some rope and some canvas. But when you put it all together, it makes a three‑dimensional shape that looks solid.”

Anchor points, he explained, are sensory and emotional cues—sound, movement, thought, touch, memory—that you alternate to keep the reader’s experience alive. “You hit the sound plate… then movement… then thought… then maybe a leg cramp—that’s touch… and when you’ve been writing long enough, you get a sense of when a plate is starting to wobble, so you hit that again.”

I told him how much I preferred this to the rigid “beats” approach that dominates contemporary writing instruction. Beats feel pre‑portioned, mechanical, algorithmic. Anchor points feel organic, improvisational. They feel like the way Edward Lee can drop you straight into a moment with one lean, load‑bearing word. Waggoner nodded. “When you write a word or phrase,” he said, “it should do triple or quadruple duty… Look for the telling detail.”

He listens to prose the way musicians listen to sound. “Sometimes it’s time for a little bit of dialogue,” he said. “Sometimes it’s time for softer words, or harder words.” He talked about suspense as a matter of pacing and density. “Creating suspense is great because you actually write more details in order to slow down what’s coming… And if the words aren’t too complicated, your readers actually speed up, because they want to find out what happens.”

Then he said something that felt like the heart of his entire philosophy of horror. “A monster’s only a monster if it’s perceived by somebody,” he told me. “If you have a monster that’s just walking around in a field, nothing’s happening… It’s only when somebody sees it as a monster.”

So instead of describing the creature, he said, describe the human reaction. “If a werewolf comes at you… you’re just going to get a blur. Maybe some teeth, maybe some eyes, maybe a sound… You’re not going to get the whole thing like an action figure.”

We moved into the clichés of writing instruction. He went straight for “write what you know.” “If you don’t explain that to people,” he said, “they think they’re supposed to write straight autobiography… You can proceed from things you know, but you can also learn stuff and then write about it.” He tells his composition students, “The biggest reason people are stuck writing is because they literally don’t have anything in their head about the topic.”

Then he tackled the literary‑writer disdain for plot. “Some professors say plot is terrible because it’s an artificial shaping of events… And I’m like, that’s kind of the point.” I mentioned Caitlín R. Kiernan—my dear friend—who famously doesn’t believe in plot. “If you’re not Caitlín,” I told him, “you probably need some structure.” Waggoner laughed. “Plot versus character… is like a mixing board.”

We drifted into rhythm, precision, poetry, and the load‑bearing capacity of language. “When you write a word or phrase,” he said again, “it should do triple or quadruple duty.” I told him how poets—good poets—teach fiction writers economy. How Bukowski’s poems hit so hard because every word is an anchor. He agreed immediately. “Pay attention to what happens in your head when you read prose… Musicians do the same thing when they listen to music.”

At one point I told him my aquarium metaphor—that writers today are less like solitary Victorian men in attics and more like creatures in a shared tank, swimming through the same slipstream of cultural imagery. Waggoner lit up. “Different writers would be different animals… They’re all sea creatures, but they still do their own thing. And they’re all swimming in the same water.”

We talked about the media that shaped us. Waggoner grew up in Dayton, Ohio, watching Dr. Creep on Shock Theater. “One week would be a Universal film… the next a Hammer film… then some bad science fiction film from the ’50s… Dr. Creep made no bones about the fact this is terrible, but this is what we’ve got.”

His father brought home Writer’s Digest when he was sixteen. “I didn’t even know it existed… He just hands it to me.”

I told him about the paperback tie‑ins of the ’70s—the black‑and‑white photo inserts, the lurid covers, the sense of forbidden magic. The Carrie blood‑drenched stills. The Wendy Carlos synths in The Shining trailer. The way those images cracked open the imagination of a twelve‑year‑old kid.

He nodded with recognition. “Those things stick with you… They become part of how you see.”

By the end of the conversation, it felt less like an interview and more like two writers comparing notes from the same long journey—notes about perception, rhythm, fear, memory, and the strange, persistent desire to make something vivid enough that another person can step inside it.

Two writers remembering the moment the water around us first shimmered.

Velvet Fatale

The Punk Prayer

I found god inside of the gutter and baptized my soul with a 40 oz Steele Reserve Malt Liquor.

I sip on gas station wine for communion and to numb the pain of existence as my sleep is haunted by many horrible nightmares.

I see the world so clearly sometimes it sends shivers down my spine and makes me filled with utter rage at how fake it really is. 

Yeah I know money is important to live but also it gives false comfort and security to those used to it. I lost almost all of mine and felt nothing inside.

Lived off a greyhound bus for 3 days off a guitar case for a Martin backpacker on a road trip. 

And when I’m on the street a guitar, a gun, or a knife and some cheap wine is all I need to feel at home anywhere I roam at night.

For I am an outcast by society. Yet secretly love people even though my tongue is barbed.

I’m a woman in soul but trapped in a body not fully mine and even my vocal cords can’t scream loud enough to hide all the pain I feel. 

So I prefer to say nothing instead and decide to laugh it off and put up my middle finger to those who piss on me from above.

Then take my body the fuck back piece by piece in ink or piercings or scraps of clothes I can afford it once I get my estrogen injection each week.

And live in bars until I get kicked out or cut off.

Hang out with bikers then Rinse and repeat. 

That is enough for me. Amen.

John Patrick Robbins

Thinking of Useless

You threw a temper tantrum, as often women who’ve run off their looks do when someone says that alien word to their ears.

No.

You flew into an instant rage.

“What the hell is your deal, you prick! I’m throwing myself at you. Do you know how many other guys would kill to be in your place, you sorry son of a bitch, goddamn! You’re such a worthless bastard!”

“I don’t know, princess. I mean, they may reconsider that offer when they find out you’re married. But hey, some guys love living on the edge, but as for me, I’m a tad bit off to the idea of contracting lead poisoning. But I’m old-fashioned like that, ya know.”

“Oh my God, quit being such a bitch! Get on a plane and come down here and fuck me. Let a beautiful woman love you, you fucking idiot!”

I almost did a spit take at that one, and although enraged, I could not resist throwing gas upon her fiery temper.

“Well, sweetheart, if you find one that has a thirst for alcoholic, overweight writers and doesn’t charge too much, send her my way.”

“Fuck you, asshole! Why do you think of every woman as some sort of whore?”

I took a sip of my freshly mixed cocktail.

“Honey, I didn’t mean to imply you’re a whore.

“I mean, you don’t charge anything…”

Abruptly, the call was dropped. Must have lost service, or maybe I had hit a nerve.

As the music played in the background, she sent a text with a nude selfie.

“When you finally grow a pair and come down, I will be waiting, dickhead!”

I read it and had to fight the urge to bust out laughing.

“Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that, or you will probably turn blue there, Smurfette.”

There was radio silence for a second, but like with most attention-spoiled, overgrown children, that void had to be filled. And she was just the batshit-insane gal for the job.

As the phone rang, I didn’t even need to look to see who was calling as I let it go straight to voicemail.

As it was followed by a text:

“Alright, cut the shit. I know you love me. Everyone does… so when are you coming down?”

As no sooner had I read the words, “Crazy” began to play from the jukebox.

Trust me, the irony was not lost upon me.

I blocked her number, ordered a double, and bought the bartender a shot.

And toasted that unnamed writer’s husband.

Because if anyone deserved a toast for putting up with that cuckoo bird’s shit, it was that poor bastard.

To better times, spilt liquor, and wasted dreams.

Cheers…

Tony Dawson

The Way to a Woman’s Heart?

A barfly with a purple nose and bloodshot eyes 
once told me that he had never paid a woman
to have sex with him, though he did ply plenty 
of women he fancied with endless gin and tonics.
He spent his income to ensure a pleasant outcome.
Ogden Nash pointed out that candy is dandy,
but liquor is quicker when breaking the ice.
Dorothy Parker explained that vice is nice
and then borrowed Nash’s “liquor is quicker”.
When I was a young man in France years ago,
I was told by gigolos, those in the know,
that while absence makes the heart grow fonder,
it’s absinthe that makes the tart grow fonder.

Daniel S. Irwin

The Chosen

Late on a dark and rainy night,
Ran off the road by some hillbilly
In a monster truck. Kissed the ditch.
Triple A said they won’t come out.
Too much strange crap happenin’
Out there along that stretch of road.
No shit. Run off into a ditch ain’t
My usual mode of driving any time.
Called the law. They laughed at me.
They said I just happened to be
Chosen and deal with it. Great.
Assholes in town and country here.
Daylight, rain stopped. I walked.
Dude came by on his chopper.
“Ain’t no thing,” he said. “Sister’s
Been a little nuts since she escaped
The asylum. You best hope on with
Me.  I seen her go out the house
With a shovel sayin’ she was gonna
Clean up her mess from last night.”
I thanked him for the ride then
Went home to pack and leave before
She put me in a hole, dead or alive.

Mark Joseph Kevlock

Been Down So Long

“Weeeellll… I been down so god-damn long!” Jim Morrison sang via the 8-track player via the speaker into the small glassed-in room, into the shell-shaped young ears of Polonia Melody a.k.a. Judy Right a.k.a. Jean Summers, or whatever name you wished to call her, most preferring bitch, as in “Suck it, bitch” or some, slut, as in “Harder, slut.”

Polonia watched beyond the waistline before her, watched the young princes, the elderstatesmen, the senators, an occasional wife, even a jester, all come to the court of the head-queen, gaping in homage, stealing secrets, taking techniques home to try. She was glad for the music to drown their shouts.

“That it looks like up to me,” Morrison sang.

It was time to turn the chair. The owner, Henry Miller (who knew not his namesake, nor could probably read him anyway), thought himself clever to tease the audience so, to keep the chair-back to their front, to give them time to gather saliva, to begin drooling even before they could see the lusty scene played out in the open.

No one took notice of the man’s face as he stood and turned, Polonia, on her knees, repositioning the wooden chair behind him. She cat-crawled Madonna-video-style around to the front of the chair as the man sat with his legs spread wide. The next scene in Henry’s play: Polonia, with her back to the court, pumping her head-well up and down over an unseen shaft.

The tile was cold on her bare feet, on her bare knees.

“Yeah, I been down so very damn long!” Morrison sang.

The man in the chair put his huge hot hard hands on either side of her head, covering her ears, and pushing her skull up and down faster and faster.

“Fool around and come too fast,” Henry had warned, “and you’ll both be out of a job — in more ways than one.”

The man in the chair seemed not to care.

Morrison sang, “Thaaaat it looks like up to me!”

And in truth, Polonia’s dizzied senses had lost their direction, her eyes and ears squeezed shut as they were.

Then the ride stopped.

But the man in the chair wouldn’t get off.

Polonia lost her balance, falling back and catching herself, palms bracing the unsterile, non-white tile. Her hearing came back, and over the disgruntled shouts of the got-him-up-now-get-him-off-and-let-us-see customers, she heard Morrison intone, “Now, why don’t one a’ youuu peo-ple / C’mon and set me free!”

The ceiling stared down at Polonia. Then the man in the chair, saving his own ass, rose out of the chair and sat down on Polonia’s form. His legs straddled either side of her chest as he leaned forward and pried her mouth open with his huge hard hot fingers.

“A job for a job,” the man-out-of-the-chair demanded. He pointed to the video camera up in the corner opposite the speaker.

“War-den! War-den! War-den!” Morrison shouted. Then the music went off, replaced by Henry Miller’s anxious voice — “C’mon, you two. Give these people what they came for.”

The man-out-of-the-chair jammed his organ into Polonia’s mouth, throat-deep. She bit down as hard as she could, feeling a warm rush of waves crashing against her epiglottis. The man yelped and drew back, tripping over her outstretched legs. He looked down at the teeth marks, looked to Polonia’s mouth, the drizzle of blood in the corners — an erection-vampire!

Polonia swallowed the blood in one thirsty gulp.

The man-out-of-the-chair stumbled back against the chair and toppled it.

The young princes, the senators, even the jester, banged on the glass wall. Some thought it was part of the show, others applauded the action whether it was a show or not. The senators’ wives stuck their noses to the glass, wet already at this rarest of sights, this most envied of creatures!

Polonia got to her knees and crawled slowly toward the wounded man-out-of-the-chair. “Sssuck it, bitch,” she slurred the “sss” sound and dragged it with her.

The wounded man bled into his cupped hands. His erection fled like air from a pricked balloon. Polonia crawled closer.

Desperate for an idea, the wounded man threw his cupped hands at her. The small pool of blood splashed her face, highlighting her ash-blonde mane. Polonia licked her lips, a mask of red dripping off her face, over her intricately-structured high cheekbones, and down her V-shaped jaw.

The glass-banging in the background formed a primal rhythm of sorts. Polonia timed her crawl to the beat, and, feeling slightly replenished, even swayed her behind a bit.

The man-out-of-the-chair suddenly remembered the chair and reached back with one hand for the wooden weapon. He hurled it as hard as his state would allow at the naked figure advancing on his position.

Polonia half-caught the chair with one outstretched arm. “Harder ssslut,” she mocked him. Then she leaned almost within his reach, frowning at his bloody mess of a waistline, and said, “Out of a job? Guess we both are.”

The man-out-of-the-chair saw the chair speeding down at his head (the one on his shoulders) and then he saw no more.

Polonia’s mouth sped down over his other head, and she sucked him dry in all of thirty seconds.

Fully nourished, her strength returned, her jail term early — paroled, Polonia lifted the huge hard hot dead man over her own head and threw him at the weakened glass wall. The senators’ wives ducked in time. Everyone else, even the jester, caught either the body itself, or shards of slicing glass from the explosion.

Henry Miller burst through the door at the rear of the room and Polonia flattened him with the chair, shattering it into splintered fragments.

Polonia stared down at Henry’s crotch. No, he couldn’t get it up if his life depended on it. No feast there. Not even a snack.

Groaning from various injuries, the audience drew Polonia’s attention away from Henry. The senators’ wives stepped through the glass and over the bodies and began to rub their thighs together. In the same room with one! They literally dripped with excitement.

With Polonia’s naked back facing him, Henry spied with blurry eyes one broken off leg of the chair. He grasped the jagged-edged weapon and rose up behind her.

The senators’ wives screamed as one.

Polonia turned, caught Henry’s arm in mid-thrust, and re-directed his aim, piercing the chair leg through his heart, and pinning him to the cold tile wall.

“Is this what they came for?” she said.

Henry spontaneously ejaculated and died. His blood ran in a thick stream over the unsterile, non-white tile.

The senators’ wives maneuvered themselves to Polonia’s side, afraid to touch the living goddess, until Polonia took their hands in hers and pressed them between her breasts.

The threesome moved toward the exit, but one of the wives stopped, her expression dismayed, her finger pointing to the video camera. “Did they capture it all on tape?” she said.

Polonia’s delicate lips stretched into a wide grin, baring her fangs, blood-streaked and pinpoint fine. “All but me,” the erection-vampire said.

Then she led her new disciples out of the whorehouse prison.

Lyn Lowland

Watch Me

Marrow may have been
What created Eve
But no one has given up
Their ribs for me

Though I have tried
Seeking out penance
This emptiness always
Returns with a vengeance

I fear bone was required
To create one who is loving
For I have failed to be good
But I will at least not be nothing

I will climb higher
Than Icarus ever flew
I have no wax wings to melt
Sunburnt shoulders will have to do

Conversing with corpses
In their own mother tongue
I am a mockery to all I imitate
Give me someone interesting to become

I promise there is sweetness
Inside my patchwork soul
The apple tastes disgusting
And I will swallow it whole

George Gad Economou

Dark Parks

nightmares in dark parks
dreams sold in tiny plastic bags
death lurks behind every tree
morose figures standing around with nothing to do
idly waiting to hand out packages of deadly dreams
veterans stagger closer
a simple gesture suffices to place an order
rookies tremble in fear failing to act confident
often getting ripped off and they’re happy thinking
they’ve scored something good
returning customers beg for the nirvana that
never visits someone twice
bodies disappear without a trace
few people remain for decades
dark parks are filled with dreams and nightmares
bliss and pain
dark parks where
everywhere and nowhere intermingle
where tiny plastic bags rarely weighing more than a couple of grams
offer the coveted way out
there’s always a surge of people coming and going
people desperate for ways to escape
and some few remain because they thrive
in the despair that encapsulates those dark parks