Plugs

Kat Beyer has just illustrated a new children's book, The Poet's Journey, by Amirthi Mohanraj.

Read Rudi's story "Detail from a Painting by Hieronymus Bosch" at Behind the Wainscot.

"Drowning Atlantis" is a collection of new flash fiction by David Kopaska-Merkel, published by spechouseofpoetry.com.

Sara Genge's "story Godtouched" may be found in Strange Horizons.

Luc Reid's book Talk the Talk: The Slang of 65 American Subcultures is in bookstores now and is full of odd insights.

Jeremiah's latest story is "Captain Blood's B00ty" appears in Shimmer Magazine and can be read online here.

Edd Vick's latest, "Reb the First" may be found at Jim Baen's Universe.

Trent Walters has a poetry chapbook, Learning the Ropes, forthcoming from Morpo Press

Alex D M's latest story is "Jumping over the Moon" in Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic

Read Daniel Braum's story siteMystic Tryst at .

Ken Brady's most recent story "Tagging" can be read at Darker Matter.

Jason Fischer has a story appearing in Jack Dann's new anthology Dreaming Again.

Susannah Mandel's columns in Strange Horizons on the fantastic in classic literature can be found here.

Angela’s story ‘The Jacaranda Wife’ is appearing in Dreaming Again, and ‘The Hummingbird Heart’ is in the new Shimmer.

Jason Erik Lundberg's latest book (co-edited with Janet Chui), A Field Guide to Surreal Botany, has just been released, and can be ordered at SurrealBotany.net.

Jonathan is now co-editor of Behind The Wainscot.

« Monkeypants | Main | Every Last Trace »

Vulture Metamorphoses

by Sara Genge


One morning, when Cindy woke up, she discovered that she had been transformed into a monstrous vulture.

Turning around, she saw her boyfriend's body lying next to her. Drew looked peaceful in death--if it hadn't been for the gouged eyes, Cindy could have sworn he was sleeping.

"Well, well," she said, knowing she should feel horrified at the sight. "What a juicy treat!". The thought caught her by surprise but once it was out, there was no taking it back. She dipped in (for the kill? For the scavenge?) and sunk her beak into the soft flesh of his apple-cheek. He was as tasty in death as he'd been in life.

Cindy realized this was wrong, but her vulture nature got the best of her. She dug in, and tried not to think.

Afterwards, she sat down wondering what to do. Damn Drew! He was always talking about genetic experiments and trans-species splicing. Doctors! A sick lot, all of them.

The next day, she ploughed a neat ditch down Drew's body, but when she got to his testicles, she couldn't proceed. She felt the faintest hint of an emotion and grabbed onto it. Those weren't any random pair of balls, they were Drew's balls, and she couldn't bear to destroy them.

Instead, she nipped them off and half-jumped, half-fluttered to the kitchen. Perching on top of the fridge, she wrapped her neck around the handle of the freezer door, opened it, placed the balls inside and closed the door with a light nudge.

She was cold and wondered if she was getting sick. She set the oven to minimum temperature and crawled inside. The pain was a little like constipation and a lot like menstrual cramps. After the longest twenty minutes of her life, Cindy laid two eggs.

She'd always wanted to have kids, but Drew said it was too soon. Elated, she dragged herself back to the corpse, leaving the oven to incubate her offspring.

Four days later, as she died of indigestion, she wondered if the babies would make it. There'd be no loving parents to take care of them, only the corpses but Cindy didn't doubt that, like all children, their babies would find a way to get the most out of their parents.

In extremis, instead of College money, the kids might find Drew's testicles in the freezer.


Comments

Sara, this is horrible in the best way.

Posted by: Luc Reid | August 9, 2007 5:53 PM

Glad you liked it. Can't miss an opportunity to take a jab at doctors, seeing as how I'm now officially one myself.

Posted by: Sara Genge | August 9, 2007 10:16 PM

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