WELCOME TO THE 80s… IN BLOOD!!!

“I have to say, On Golden Pond is my all time favorite eighties movie.” – 80s President, Ronald W. Reagan

The 1980s. What were they? Historians disagree on a great many things about

the 80s, but most agree that the 80s are over. It is true that long before the

1980s there were the 1880s, which were also a time of economic booms thanks to

the Second Industrial Revolution. People liked that first one so much that

they decided to do it again. This is why machines are everywhere now. Nothing

says the 80s like machines being everywhere. I was kid back in the 1980s and

that’s the main thing I remember: the machines. Once I went on a trip with my

family to Guam, and guess what? There were machines there too. I’m not sure

what those machines did. The Guam people were very protective of their

machines. I plied them with alcohol to see if it would loosen their lips but

they sang only great songs of battle from the 80s. They were almost as

secretive as their machines were beautiful, glowing neon colors and purring

like palm-muted eighths.

Everyone remembers three things about the 80s: Michael Jackson, E.T., and

that they came after the 70s. We hope this issue jogs your memory about a few

other facets of the 80s that you might not remember.

 Saved by the Nose
Laura Lee Bahr

I always give credit where it's due, and it is due to Jamie's Nose. So talk all
you want, but I only did what she asked–I mean begged—me to do.

I do not use Good or Bad to describe the type of witch I am. I suppose
"teenage" would be a better description, for what teenager can ever be good, and
as such, how can they truly be bad?

I am not a teenager, of course. I am at least 200 years old. But that is teenage as
far as my type of witches are concerned.

Anyway, Good or Bad aren't really part of it. Everything comes at a price, and
to be fair, I did tell her I couldn't make Harry Hamlin fall in love with her, even if
I did rid her of her source of shame (which she never knew was actually her
source of power and beauty, until it was too late.)

Sure, when she first came to me, I lived in a desert of melting swatches.
All I had was a pack of Coreys panting in the heat, their eyes darting,
sweating so hard that their wet look was no longer just a look.

Corey Maim and Corey Headlock, werewolf twins, were the best I had of the
pack and honestly, they were total dickweeds.

But here she comes, this huge star, all moves and all nose, crying, asking if I
can help her.
The Coreys were already being yappy, quoting her movie lines back to her—
which every star hates. I slapped them silly.
 That impressed her.

She said she was in love with People's Sexiest Man of the Year, 1987, and she
wanted him to fall in love with her back.

She came to me, already having the love of America, and Breakin' 8–Don't
Gotta Hate star F. Mustard Green but she wanted Sexiest Man of 1987. Had to
have him. Thought they had a mythical connection. Apparently, she had saved him
from a terrible plastic surgery decision that would have cost him the button in
his chin.

Weak Irony is the trademark of teenagers everywhere, including witches, so

of course I told her that if she wanted to be able to be part of his world, the world
of being Sexiest People Alive, she couldn't have the nose.
"If you love the Sexiest Man Alive, you have to be the Sexiest Woman Alive,"
I said. "A button on a chin is attractive. A nose of any size on a woman's face...
well... see for yourself."

I handed her a red View-Master of the Bogues' Sexiest Women. Did any of
them have noses? No.

I am not saying this was the right thing to do, but as a teenage witch in a land
of melting swatches and roaming packs of Coreys, you have to look out for
yourself. You pick on weakness to get by. And I really wanted the nose.

She said she would trade her nose for one that looked like Sharon Stone's.

My two best Coreys, sad sacks though they were, flanked her, hungry.
 She assumed they wanted to make out with her, so when Maim leaned in close
she gave him a look she would give her little brother (he was 10 years younger
than her and still very immature) not realizing. Then he clamped his lips around
her source of all magic.
He bit down.
And spit onto the ground the nose.

All the Coreys jumped in to get a piece of it.

Beating them back with my breakdancing moves, though, I recovered the nose
with only a few teeth marks.

Through her screams of pain and despite the gaping space in her face, Jamie
thanked me as I fastened a Sharon Stone trademarked model nose on her.

Her Not Sexiest Woman Alive she could already feel, assuaging.
Now, without the nose, she was at last free to be who she really was.
Beautiful.
She was so happy.
I swear.

When she returned to me, a year later wanting it back, my Coreys growled,
like the haggard circling 20 year olds they were. She still had the Sharon Stone
nose and I complimented her on it. She wasn't fooled.

Lit up like the Shankara stones of Temple of Doom, was Jamie's nose. It was
the centerpiece of all my noses—making all the others glow. Her nose had
brought life again to the desert.
My swatches were springy again, and I had a very green lawn and even a pool.
Oh, and it had also brought the children back.
 She cried, sure, but a deal is a deal and fair is fair.
She had had her time with Harry Hamlin. Even if he hadn't recognized her.
She disappeared back into the desert night, not knowing she would soon turn
into sea foam in a movie about sailing.

Good or bad, I refuse to say what I am. What I will say is that the children
still play here, and her nose still glows like a nightlight, bringing them home after
their long long journeys for flesh.

You could argue that I what I did was wrong, but you make that argument
fully hydrated and not falling down in the dark when the sun sets.
So you know, bite me.
 Lazer Cocaine
Vince Kramer

Jahrell knew that he had immediately caught AIDS when his coworker Tom
came in his ass. He never had gay sex before, but if he knew anything about gay
sex it was that it immediately made you catch AIDS. He was fucking his
coworker Cindy at the same time, her head bashing against the porcelain lid of
the toilet in the bathroom stall. The mixture of cocktails, lazer cocaine, and
hardcore sex in the bar bathroom was intense. As he came in Cindy, he imagined
that the AIDS he just caught three seconds ago immediately went inside of her as
well. But Jahrell didn’t feel bad about it. Hell, it was Tom’s fault in the first place.
If anyone should be blamed for spreading AIDS all over the workplace, it was
Tom.
“Whew!” Cindy said, pushing herself off of Jahrell’s huge AIDS penis. “Did
you guys both cum?”
“Sure did!” Tom smiled. “High fives!”
Everyone smiled and whooped and gave each other high fives, just like they
had accomplished the coolest thing since Van Halen’s Jump video.
“And I don’t need to cum, since I’m a woman or something,” Cindy said. “So
just being your dirty little cum dump was close enough.”
Cindy closed her eyes and smiled, swaying back and forth in ecstasy.
“I can just feel it swimming around inside of me.”
“AIDS?” Jahrell asked.
“What?!” Cindy yelled, snapping out of her cum-filled daze.
Jahrell’s heart went up his throat.
“Uh… you know, because both me and Tom are both your aids at work.”
 Jahrell smiled, winked at her and knocked her on the shoulder.
“Boss.”
“Oh!” Cindy laughed. “That’s funny. For a second I thought you gave me
AIDS, that big gay virus, because you’re both fags now.”
“Hey!” Tom interjected. “That’s only part faggot.”
“Or bisexual?” Jahrell asked.
“Whatever. Now let’s wash our hands and do some more lazer cocaine. Then
we can get at least one more drink before happy hour is over.”
After they washed their hands, Cindy removed a Lazer Tag gun from her
purse. She playfully shot it at the boys, making pew pew sounds even though the
toy gun made its own. Everyone laughed and pretended to be shot and dying.
She handed it to Tom and he held it sideways and poured a modest amount of
cocaine on it. Using his credit card, he easily was able to get it all into the gun’s
long crevice down the side. The part that lights up.
He held it in front of his face and put his rolled up one hundred dollar bill to
the end of the pistol.
“Light me up, Cindy!”
Cindy pressed the trigger on the gun. As Tom snorted up the huge line, the
gun made lazer sounds and lit up red where the line was.
Tom snorted intensely and threw his head back.
“LAZER COCAINE!” he shouted, like it was the best thing ever!
“LAZER COCAINE!” Jahrell and Cindy shouted back in unison.
“HIGH FIVES!” Tom yelled. And they all gave each other high fives again, like
they were cooler than Michael Jackson after they put the fire out on his head
with a fire extinguisher.
“Me next, me next!” Cindy shouted excitedly.
 “No, me!” Jahrell yelled.
“Guys, don’t worry,” Tom said. “There’s enough lazer cocaine for
everybody.”

When they returned to their seats at the bar, there was a bunch of kids sitting
there. Cindy groaned. There was nothing she could stand less than 80s children.
She even took the lazer tag pistol off of her nephew because he was annoying the
fuck out of her with it. She said he wouldn’t be able to have it back until he was
old enough to have a real gun, reassuring him that they would have actual lazer
pistols in the not-too-far-away future. She put it in her purse and he never saw it
again.
Cindy sneered, and started to stalk over to the kids like a bitch on wheels,
ready to give them a severe and adultish tongue lashing. Noticing this, Jahrell
grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back, instantly alarmed by what was about
to go down.
“Cindy!” he whisper/shouted in her ear. “Remember what happened last
time?”
Cindy turned around and stared at him blankly. She waited a few seconds, and
snapped, “What?!”
Jahrell and Tom looked at each other and then back at Cindy. Blankly.
“WHAT?!” she shouted, suddenly more pissed off at them than she was the
kids. “WHAT happened last time?”
“We don’t know,” Tom said.
 “Yeah,” Jahrell added. “We were just waiting for the writer to come up with
something good.”
Cindy threw up her hands and shouted, “Oh, FUCK THAT! Don’t you two
start with that META BULLSHIT again.”
“OK,” Jahrell said. Then he shook his head at Tom, like he was secretly
letting him know that would never happen.
“URGH!” Cindy grunted aloud. “Let’s just go get a fucking drink!”
She smiled halfway to the bar, and turned around to share the total epiphany
she just totally had with them.
“LAST time we got kicked out and eighty-sixed from that bar forever because
I told those kids…”
A small voice from behind cut her off.
“…that they were a bunch of little brats who only like Mr. Mom because their
daddies are a bunch of faggots!”
Cindy gasped. It was the same kids from the last bar!
Another kid spoke up, “And that the only reason we exist is because your
generation did too much acid, and that’s why we’re retarded enough to like dumb
shit like Cabbage Patch Kids and Care Bears.”
“You did say that,” Tom said to Cindy, trying to step back and distance
himself from her a little. Jahrell stepped up a bit instead, like he had her back.
A third kid took out a switchblade, and with a flash had the blade sticking out
of the handle menacingly. He said, “Do we look like we like a bunch of Care Bears
and shit, bitch!?”
 The fourth kid in the “gang” slammed a shot glass down on the bar and
jumped off the stool. It was pretty high for a kid.
Jahrell stepped in front of Cindy and pushed her back a little, protectively.
“How the fuck are y’all always drinking at bars and shit when y’all are
underage!”
Tom stepped forward, “Yeah! What the hell is wrong with your generation!?”
“We run this town, faggot!” the first kid said. “POWER OF THE EIGHTIES!”
“YEAH!” another shouted, and then they all gave eachother high fives and got
down on the floor and started breakdancing.
“What the fuck?!” Cindy shouted.
She ran up to the bartender to bitch and complain.
“How the fuck can you let these little bastards drink in here and do whatever
they want!?”
The bartender cocked his eyebrow. “I let you and your friends snort cocaine
and fuck in the bathroom all the time, don’t I?”
“YES! But we’re NOT KIDS!”
“But you heard them. POWER OF THE EIGHTIES! Right, kids?!” the
bartender rallied for them. And then he poured out four more shots for the group.
“Just a minute, Lawrence,” the head kid said to the bartender. “We got some
unfinished business to do.” He took out his switchblade again.
“Look, you bitch and you fucking faggots. We run this town. Don’t make us
show you why.”
 Cindy laughed. “Oh, what? What you got other than that stupid little
switchblade, punk!?”
Jahrell had to hold her back again.
“Henry!” The head kid shouted, revealing they all probably had names. “Show
this bitch.”
Henry tore off his bright yellow zipper jacket to reveal that he was totally
strapped. That is, with a Lazer Tag vest complete with two pistols dangling off
the sides. He looked like a bullet-proof, Velcro, neon nightmare.
The kid grabbed his two pistols and pointed them like he meant business. He
meant so much business that one of the other kids put a cool pair of black shades
on him.
“He looks really cool!” Tom whispered to Jahrell. Jahrell shushed him.
Cindy laughed, “Oh, two can play at that game, you little shit.” Cindy fumbled
around in her purse for her Lazer Tag pistol. When she had it, she pulled it out as
fast as she could, like a gunslinger. It probably helped that she was all coked up,
but she was able to fire the toy gun really, really fast. The kid’s Lazer Tag vest lit
up and blared sounds of defeat before anyone could even react.
“HA!” she shouted. “Who’s cool now?!”
The bartender threw down his towel and ran for the front door. “I am out of
here!” he said as he exited the scene with haste.
“Who’s cool?” the lead kid asked her. “Who’s cool?!” He went over to get
one of the guns off of Henry, the only kid with a name thus far (don’t go back and
check).
“Here you go, Tony,” Henry said, revealing the lead kid’s name.
 “Shhh!” Tony hushed him. “Stories these short can only have five characters
with names! Don’t you read in the future?”
Then Tony pointed the gun at Cindy and pulled the trigger. It shot a real lazer,
and the sharp red blast went straight through her. She gasped in shock, clutching
at her wound.
“DAMN!” Jahrell shouted. Grabbing Cindy as she slumped to the floor.
“You bastards!” Tom yelled. “I should’ve known you were commies!”
“We’re from the future!” One of the other kids shouted. We’ll call him Jimmy.
“Yeah! We have lazers there and everything,” Henry, the first boy to have a
name said. “We’ve come back to the eighties to show all you Neanderthals what
it’s like!”
“I knew it,” Cindy whispered to Jahrell, gurgling up some blood. “I knew we’d
have lazers in the future for real.”
Jahrell’s face lit up. “And probably a cure for AIDS too!”
Cindy gave him a puzzled look, and died.
“Now put your hands up, suckas!” the boy gang leader commanded.
“I guess we’re not going to have to worry about dying of AIDS now, Jahrell,”
Tom said.
“You think we have AIDS too?!”
“Of course I do. I put my dick in your ass, didn’t I?”
Jahrell smiled, happy with the fact that he was not alone in thinking they all
had AIDS now. But then he remembered they were about to die anyway, and
frowned.
Then he came up with an idea.
 “WAIT!” he shouted. “You can’t kill us! We have AIDS!”
“YEAH!” Tom shouted. “If you shoot us, there will be AIDS ALL OVER this
bar, and everyone will die!”
“That’s not how AIDS works, dumbass!” one of the kids said—whoever, at
this point.
“We’re all immune in the future anyway,” another said.
“So prepare to die, bitches.”
Then Tom and Jahrell noticed behind the kids, out the window, a car was
speeding straight toward the place. They heard the sirens right before the loud
crash through the bar’s window as it screeched to a stop indoors. A brick flew
and clipped one of the kids in the head, and he went down like he was made of a
ton of them. Shattered glass ripped another open like an orange being peeled by a
garbage disposal. A piece of rebar flew at the kid in the Lazer Tag get-up and
bounced off his vest. He was totally fine, because Lazer Tag is hardcore. The
leader was unscathed.
It was a cop car.
Jahrell quickly dropped his bag of cocaine in Cindy’s purse.
“Good thinking,” Tom whispered to him.
Jahrell gave his friend a wink.
A big, burly police officer staggered out of the vehicle.
“Get out of my way, fuckers!” he commanded. “I need a drink!”
The future-boy gang leader got in his way.
“This story needs to be two thousand words or less, shitface!” the boy yelled
at him.
“See?” Jahrell said to Tom. “Other people love that meta shit too!”
“I’m glad Cindy is dead,” he replied.
 Seems like everything is working out for those two. They’ll probably find out
they don’t have AIDS soon as well. They exited through the back door without
seeing what was going to happen.
The cop drew his weapon on the lead boy, who always gets all the best lines
and shit.
“I’m so sick of these fucking stories, kid! I’m always driving around drunk
and pulling my gun on people because of them! It’s like that’s what writers think
all cops do!”
“THAT IS WHAT YOU ALL DO!” the kid screamed at him. “I’m from the
future and this happens all the time!”
“I supposed you know all about it, don’t you future boy?!” the cop got out his
handcuffs and slapped them on the kid. “We’ll just hear all about your backstory
downtown, MISTER!”
“Aw jeez!” the kid said. He then noticed he was suddenly abandoned by his
last surviving friend, who must have hightailed it back to the future. A shame too,
since he had the only futuristic future-travelling device EVER MADE.
He sighed, and said, “Well, at least the story is over.”

THE END
 Going Commando
Matt Vest

“–mber, Sully, when I promised to kill you last?”

“Rewind! Rewind!” Lori shouted. “It’s before this.”
I pushed the button and the VCR ch-conked and whirrrrred and everything
went stripey and diagonal and backwards on the screen and the dark car chase
unwound itself back to the mall with the long neon balloons and infinite security
guards and “There! Stop!” she shouted.
Ch-conk. I kept my finger ready over the pause button as the tape played.
On the screen Rae Dawn Chong stands against the pillar, her beautiful,
conflicted eyes looking at her hulking kidnapper, as he pleads with her to help
him save his daughter: “She has less than ten hours left. You understand?
They’re going to kill her!”
“Okay,” says Rae Dawn, “alright.” And she slides away, eyes lingering on him
until she is offscreen.
“Pause!” Lori shouted.
I paused the tape. Schwarzenegger’s ruddy cheek bone protrudes below his
sloping brow as he faces a concrete pillar. The image jitters back and forth.
“This is it,” she said. “This is the gate. You can enter here.”
“I still don’t believe you. You know that, right?”
“Fuck you.” She handed me the pipe, checked to make sure my chair was
positioned properly within the intricate web of occult symbols and diagrams
she’d chalked on the garage floor. She picked up the paper with the incantation on
it.
“It’s going to work. This is an original tape from 1985, an original VCR and TV,
and that pipe in your hands is the key that will unlock this gate.”
“I still don’t get it. DMT just makes you go to hyperspace and see elves and
shit. You can’t use it to go into movies.”
“Certain movies. Certain times, if you do it just right. And we’re doing it right.
Do you remember what you have to do?”
I nodded.
“Tell me again,” she said, lighting some awful-smelling incense and waving it
around my head.
“I have to convince him to give me the locket in his pocket by telling him I can
save his daughter. But how do you know he has a locket in his pocket? We never
see it in the movie. And it is just a movie, so how can there be something in the
movie that we don’t see? You know what I mean? Movies don’t work like that.”
“Quit fucking thinking so much, Mark! Just go with it. What do you do when
you get the locket?”
“I put it on, and it comes out with me. This is such bullshit. Why don’t you do
it?”
“I can’t do it again, stupid! Gates only open once per customer. I fucked it up
last time. He wasn’t buying it.”
“But why do we need this thing anyway?”
“I told you, there’s something inside it. It’s like, incredibly powerful gate
magic. Only a couple of movies have an artifact like this, and this one is our best
shot.”
“Okay, fine, but what does it actually do?”
 “I think maybe you can gate anywhere with it. But I don’t really know. It’s
gotta be something fucking amazing though.”
I sighed. This didn’t feel right. “What the fuck am I doing right now?”
“Put the pipe in your mouth.”
I did. She lit it.
“Inhale!” I did. “Again!” I did. “Again!” I did. And it was that easy. It
happened that fast. The garage fractalized and came apart into phosphorescent
honeycombs and I heard her start to chant:
“Amahami way, ha! Amahami chu way?!
“Amahami hockamami chi way, ha!”
The words gradually distorted and became hard and metallic and scratchy
until they couldn’t be called words anymore, and then took on tiny particulate
shapes that coalesced and became the concrete pillar from the video, and the feel
of the concrete pillar on my back, and the sound of people, and… And I was
fucking there. My back was against the pillar in the mall. Colonel John Matrix was
staring at me. He looked perplexed.
“Dude,” I said, “this is 3D.”
He grabbed me by my shirt collar and shoved me back hard. “Who the fuck
are you?”
“Mark! I’m Mark! I’m sorry! Listen! Listen, I know how to get your daughter.
We can skip all this bullshit with the security guards and the car chase and the–
“
He gripped me tighter, lifted me by my shirt. “How do you know about my
daughter? What the Hell is going on here? Talk!”
 “I’m from the future. I didn’t think it would work. It’s a fucking movie!”
“What movie? What are you talking about?”
“Listen, we need to go. She’s going to send the security guards any second
now. Oh shit…”
The first two security guards were approaching. Soon there would be
hundreds of them, and so much violence and running.
He saw my eyes go wide and turned around.
The security guard spoke: “What are you doing here?”
And suddenly everything went very slow. Matrix spun around to me and
smiled. The light in the mall got dim and the whole place lit up with disco colors.
A DJ voice came from above.
“And now let’s take a voyage with The Bee Gees in a vessel of sound
repurposed from Frank Devol. That phenomenal, irreplaceable, 1981 smash hit we
all know and love: ‘Got a Locket in my Pocket!’”
From the first note, I was transfixed. It was a song I did not know, but was
without any doubt the best song I have ever heard. It was perhaps the best
possible song. Not just the best possible Bee Gees song, but the best possible
song. It was a song that demanded a wild, cavorting, whirling obeisance. A song
no human body could deny. The security guards ripped off their shirts and linked
arms.
Matrix extended his massive hand to me.
“May I have this dance?” he asked, eyes sparkling.
Well, what was I to do? How could I not dance to this song? How could I not
riotously spin and strut and dip and twirl in Colonel John Matrix’s strong arms
while rows of shirtless security guards filed in around us in ever-shifting, ever-
expanding kaleidoscopic patterns of choreographed majesty?
We danced. Oh God, how we danced!
 Got a locket in my pocket
With a picture in the locket
And the picture in the locket in my pocket
Is a picture of Me-eeee
For you-uuuu
I remember his eyes so wide, his mouth roaring in laughter. Spittle flying
everywhere. The smell of his hot, laughing breath. And I was laughing with the
same abandon. There was no beginning or end to the sheer joy that coursed
through us on this wave of impossible musical glory.
It’s a token o-oooof
My endless lo-ooove
Of the love so great
It cannot wait
The song seemed to go on forever, but somehow ended much too soon.
And the locket can be yo-urs,
Sweet, sweet yo-urs
Oh the locket can be yo-urs
If you….
There was a long pause at the end of the last verse, then three shocking words
were thrice shouted, punk-rock-style:
KILL JOHN MATRIX!
KILL JOHN MATRIX!
KILL JOHN MATRIX!
As the song ended, all the security guards slid to their knees, heads thrown
back, arms wide to the ceiling. John dipped me. There was a long silent moment,
and he let me up. All the guards walked away. The lighting went back to normal.
John took my hand in his and we began to stroll along, walking leisurely
toward the food court. He was smiling. I was beginning to think he really had
feelings for me. I couldn’t help but feel flattered. He was so strong and confident.
I had to admit I felt a little something myself. It was such a joy just to be walking
hand-in-hand with him.
“Tell me,” he said, “what was it you were saying about the future?”
“I’m from the future, and I know how to get your daughter back. I just need
the locket from your pocket and I can make it happen. We can save her, John.
Together.”
“And what makes you think there’s a locket in my pocket?” He pinned me
playfully against the railing and flashed a smile. “What makes you think I’m not
just happy to see you?”
“Well,” I said, seeing an opportunity, “Maybe I’ll just find out for myself.”
I reached into his pocket, but he grabbed my wrist, yanked me around and
twisted my arm painfully behind my back, pushing my head over the railing.
“You don’t think I’m that easy do you? Sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart,
but I am not happy to see you!”
I knew that was the kill line. That he would snap my neck in less than a
second. That I had to act fast. But I didn’t have to.
Rae Dawn Chong smashed a bottle of vodka over his head and I was free. The
security guards came back and lined up, taking turns getting seriously injured
because of his awful damned martial competence. Rae Dawn Chong looked at me
pleadingly.
“Don’t you see?” She asked. “This is your chance!” She offered me the
broken vodka bottle.
I took it, stared at it. It was incredibly sharp, as broken vodka bottles tend to
be. I realized I could use it to kill John Matrix.
And I did. I waited patiently as the line of security guards slowly dwindled. I
waited for just the right moment, when his neck was exposed and there was
nothing he could do to protect it, and I cut his throat. Just like that.
Then, seemingly possessed by an unseen force, I knelt down next to him as he
gasped for breath and I whispered in his ear, “Oh, cut it out, John.”
And he died. It was much easier than I expected. I think it was because I was
so calm. I really don’t know why I was so calm. That may be a property of DMT.
It may have a calming effect.
I reached into his pocket and there it was, on the other side of his penis, which
was partially blocking the inside of the pocket because he was going commando.
There was the locket. I pulled it out.
It was beautiful. Made of two perfectly smooth rounded slabs of polished black
stone, it glittering with what seemed like millions of tiny stars, and was framed
in a gleaming, impossibly intricate, and constantly transforming web of metallic
lace that became its own chain. I held it up and gazed at it, and all of the seriously-
injured security guards stopped moaning and gazed at it, and Rae Dawn Chong
knelt beside me and gazed at it. After a time, I put it around my neck. I opened it
and looked inside.
There was a tiny screen, with a portrait of John’s face, frozen in video, lit
from the side by a strange red light. Everything around me seemed to fade away
to darkness and there was only his face. It grew larger and larger until it was all I
could see. Somehow, I pressed play on a VCR in the darkness and the face spoke.
“Whatever your name is, get ready for a big surprise: You are not you. You’re
me.”
And as quickly as I had gone into the whole thing, I was out of it. There was a
scream, and a breaking of glass, and I opened my eyes. Lori was hiding behind the
television, staring wide-eyed at me. On the screen was his face like in the locket,
still talking. I heard the words “fuck Cohagen good.”
“What the fuck!” she screamed.
“What–what happened? What’s–going on?” I asked.
She threw a VHS tape at me.
“Where is he?” she demanded. “Where is Mark?”
 “What are you talking–” I stopped. My voice was weird. It was like I had a
speech impediment or something. I sounded like–
No.
“Wait–wait.” I said, standing up.
I looked down at my body. Something was wrong. It was too big. Too strong.
And then I saw my reflection in the garage door glass. I was him. I was
Schwarzenegger.
She pushed the TV stand over and attacked me with a series of surprisingly
expert spin kicks, which I seemed able to block without any trouble. I threw her
to the other side of the garage and she hit her head against the wall and went
down.
That was when I noticed the face–his face–my face–on the sideways TV
screen was caught in a loop.
“-t your ass to Mars.”
“Get your ass to Mars.”
“Get your ass to Mars.”
Just then, there was a concussion of sound and pressure that threw me onto
my back as the garage door exploded in thousands of sparkling shards. A bright
wall of light shone in from the blackness outside and rotors thudded and wind
swirled. Lori crawled to her feet and leveled a pistol at my forehead. A voice came
over a loudspeaker:
“Matrix! You are surrounded by Army guys and police and everything, so just
listen, okay? Just listen to the words that we are saying. Just relax! We have so
much to tell you, John! So much to show you! We are the elves, John! We are the
merry elves of hyperspace! Come outside and look at this! Come outside and look
at the impossible shapes! Come outside with your hands in the air!”
 Take On Me
Brian Evenson

When the detective comes conscious again, a man with feathered hair is
leaning over him, smiling in a way that can’t exactly be described as evil—more
like distractedly deranged. Though, considering the way he is backlit, it is a little
hard to say for sure: mainly he is just a mass of glowing hair with a shadowy
face-like protuberance in front of it. Fleetingly, the detective thinks, How do I
even know he’s human?
“What’s—” the detective starts to say, but the man gently covers his
mouth with duct tape.
“Don’t speak,” the man whispers, his voice like that of a child, “don’t ruin
the moment.”
The man has an accent that the detective cannot place. For a moment, his
mind reels. How many drinks had he had last night, and where had it led him?
This man is hardly his type, but shit happens. He would shrug helplessly at his
own frailty, but his hands seem to be too tightly bound to allow it. Which makes
him think that probably whatever brought him here wasn’t a matter of mutual
consent. Unless of course, the ropes were some sort of bondage ritual.
He could endlessly speculate about this, and indeed would, having no other
way to pass the time, but the man in front of him begins to speak. Or, rather, sing.
He is, he recounts to the detective through the medium of song, a member of a
band. In fact, he is the leader of the band, the lead singer. It takes him three
verses to express this to his satisfaction, and he keeps on covering one of his
ears and adjusting his pitch, staring up at the ceiling as he does so, his head
bobbing, feathered hair flapping hypnotically.
Over the course of the next hour, the man slowly draws together for the
detective the strands of his story. He claims he went through a shift in what he
calls narrative register, slipping from the so-called real world into a printed page.
And yet, he could still walk and move, and above all flee. But, in the process, he
became unstable, his skin tingling and twitching. His whole body had become
vermicular, as if made of worms.
You can’t understand how this feels
he sings
And what it might do to the mind,
Which soon feels stuffed with small eels
And as if insufficiently splined

Splined? Thinks the detective. What the hell does that even mean? Either the
singer has been overusing the thesaurus or, more likely, his foreign accent means
he’s substituting in false cognates, words perfectly clear in his own language that
become cryptic when transposed into English. And in any case, the man isn’t
paper now: he seems real enough. Maybe he means it as a metaphor?
He tries to reassure the man with his eyes and by making slight grunts
that he understands, that he sympathizes—that the man should cut the ropes and
release him. He was, he wants to tell the singer, not after him at all—he hasn’t
the faintest idea who he is—but after a pair of wrench-wielding motorcyclists,
wanted for the murder of, the murder of… He can’t remember just who right
now, but that’s a minor detail. He’ll remember.
Don’t crumple me
The singer sings
For if you do,
I cannot be,
Held responsible to
Anyone for what I’ll do.
 What does that even mean? It’s as bad as splined. But at least the singer
seems to be done now.
But though he is done singing, he is not done. Instead, he gets out a bone saw.
The detective tries to scream through the duct tape as the singer begins to
take him apart, sawing off his limbs and discarding them. Each time, there is a
brief rush of pain, a surge of blood, and then just as suddenly no pain at all. It
should be killing him, but it isn’t. He turns his head and sees that his discarded
limbs have become flat: pieces of paper drawn on in colored pencil. They are, he
realizes, still moving, the paper changing as they do, the penciled lines wriggling
like worms. And then the singer puts the saw to his neck and hacks off his head.
*
When he comes conscious again, he is all back together. The singer, spattered
with ink, is just finishing with the masking tape, and he can feel where his new
joints are. He is lying flat on the floor, no thickness to him, unable to move. He
experiences a terrible, terrible nausea, and then the singer, whistling, gives a
mock bow and moves out of vision. A moment later, he hears the sound of a door
closing.
He struggles to get up. He can rustle the paper of his limbs, but little more.
His hands are free, but he cannot lift them. He can move his eyes, but there is
nothing to see. Every time he moves, it feels as if insects are crawling along the
surface of his skin.
And despite it all, he feels a song coming on. He hums into the duct tape
over his mouth. It is not even a song he particularly likes, but he knows every
word.
 Wrestling with the Devil
Jillian Bost

Goody Heath touched the top of her descendant’s head; or tried, for her
hand went through it like a wisp of wind. “What is wrong, child?”
Lydia shook her head as she picked at her Cheez Whiz sandwich. “I just
feel weird. You know, when I woke up this morning, I thought it would be the
same day as usual. Jabbing Gazza or Bazza in the eyes when the referee’s back is
turned. Clotheslining Bunny Boils when she chases after me. But now I feel like
something will happen tonight. Something… bad.”
Goody Heath frowned. “You oughtn’t make predictions like that, dear child.
Wishing misfortune on others, or sensing it for yourself, like a prophecy, could
be akin to witchcraft. I should know.” Her vapor-y hand went through her broken,
wispy neck.
“Oh. Sorry, Grandma.” Lydia rubbed her neck, then flinched. “I’ll—I’ll try
to think happy thoughts.” She took a sip from her Jolt Cola and her eyes bugged
out.
“You must do better than that. You must pray, my child.” Goody Heath
frowned at her. “Pray that the lord will grant you salvation, and curse your
enemies until their eyes are aflame—oh damn, I’ve done it again.” Goody Heath
vanished.
“See you later, Grandma.” Lydia took another bite of her sandwich. The
FW,Y!’s ( Fucking Wrestling, Yeah!) Saturday night show was due to start in a
couple hours. She had to go over that night’s spot with her boys, where she was
due to attempt a full nelson on Bazza while her boys Antonius and Gregor
distracted the ref.
 That was, of course, if Bunny Boils, the Bottlers’ valet, played her part right
and didn’t try to go into business for herself.
The Cemetery Boys met her at the bowels of the building—the boiler
room. “Good evening, Lydia,” Gregor intoned. “Are you prepared for our
desecration of the Bottlers?”
Lydia’s skin crawled. “Gregor—Steve. You’re not gonna ‘desecrate’ Bazza
and Gazza with your pee again, are you?”
Gregor and Antonius chortled. “It was a rib, Lyd. They got over it. You
were more upset about it than they were.”
“It’s because she’s got a crush on Gazza,” Antonius said with a smirk.
Lydia blushed. “Fuck off, man. I do not.”
Maybe she had badgered Grandma Heath for her ancient apple pie recipe so
she could impress Gazza by hitting him in the face with it during a match. But
that was all.
“We must prepare for the night’s match with our weekly ritual,” Gregor
intoned.
“Oh man, really, Steve? You take eight weeks of drama classes and
suddenly you’re fit to play Macbeth?”
“You’ve never even read Shakespeare, Lydia,” he snarked in his normal
voice. “So bite me.”
“I thought that was your job,” she grumbled, adjusting her one-shouldered
top.
“Aww, Lyd, how come you never let me get some of that?” Antonius
whined, sounding distinctly unvampiric and more like Darryl Taylor, the guy
who’d worked as a security guard in a strip club for years before deciding he was
beefy enough to become a pro wrestler. Which was true, but…
“Don’t be gross, Taylor,” someone chided. “Leave the girl alone, you total
barf bag.”
Lydia turned around, ready to thank whoever had defended her.
Bunny Boils! Bunny had come to her rescue. What was going on? Bunny
normally would have laughed and called Lydia a massive, gaping slut, then
sauntered off as her boombox played Alice Cooper.
Hmmm.
“Thanks, Bunny,” Lydia ventured slowly.
Bunny blinked at her. “Like, whatever,” she said at last. “I mean, uh…”
She scratched her poufy blonde hair, something she would never do, as she didn’t
want to ruin the Aqua Net’s hard work. “I’ll see you later. You can do your spot
on Bazza, no problem.”
Then she walked away, not even taking any pot shots at Lydia’s weight or
hair.
Prickles went up and down Lydia’s spine. Something was definitely off
here. It hadn’t been just a bad whiff of the Whiz in her sandwich.
“Hey!” barked Mr. Collin, the owner of FW,Y!., as he swaggered down the
hallway. “I’m not paying you all to stand around here and jabber-jaw. Show starts
in twenty minutes. Get your asses prepped.” He stomped off.
“Um.” Lydia wondered if he had any idea how else those words could be
interpreted.
“For the matches, Lyd,” Gregor supplied helpfully. “You’ve got such a
gutter mind. You embarrass us sometimes.”
 As they headed toward the backstage area just outside the community
center’s main floor, they felt a tremor shake the building. Lydia steadied herself
against the wall, while Gregor and Antonius grabbed hold of each other, gripping
tightly.
“What the hell was that?” Lydia gasped out, once the tremors had stopped.
“Are we even supposed to get earthquakes in Michigan?”
“It’s the Reds, man,” Darryl said, his accent and wrestling persona slipping.
“Holy shit. They just came down in a bunch of planes. Or maybe they’re coming
up from underneath the ground. Oh, fuck, it must be that. What else would cause
an earthquake?”
“Fault lines,” Steve/Gregor said, grim as Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer.
“Let’s go out there and make sure everyone else is okay.” He and Darryl
continued to clutch each other’s arms, while Lydia steadied herself against the
walls as she walked.
When they entered the locker room, instead of the yelling and laughing and
joking Lydia expected to hear, hardly anyone was talking. Most people stood or
sat huddled together.
It was just a tiny earthquake. Was it really that shocking?
Lydia was by no means a locker room leader, but she cleared her throat and
stood tall. “Come on, guys. Why are we all siting around here like a funeral’s
about to take place? We’ve got a show to get ready for.”
“They’re probably not gonna do the show since there’s been an earthquake,
genius,” Gazza snapped.
Lydia winced. See if she ever gave him apple pie again.
 “Where’s Mr. Collin?” Steve wondered. “Shouldn’t he be back here yelling
at all of us to get on with the show, damn it?”
“I’ll try to find him,” Lydia said.
“I’ll come with you,” Bunny Boils said, to Lydia’s surprise once more.
The building was eerily quiet. They should have heard people talking,
children crying, Collin yelling. But not a sound.
They entered the main floor, risking Mr. Collin’s wrath for being seen by
the fans before the show.
No one was there.
“Oh, shit, Lydia. I don’t like this,” Bunny murmured, clutching her arm.
“This is fucking weird. Where did everyone go?”
“I wish I knew,” Lydia muttered. “Listen, let’s go outside and—”
“Look!” Bunny pointed at the ring.
Lydia stared. The ring was empty; the ropes were red, white and blue.
What was she supposed to be looking—
Oh. Shit.
Smoke rose up from the ring canvas. At first the smoke just looked like
wisps, but then they began to take on shapes. The shapes were… human. And
rapidly forming into something more specific…
Puritans. Puritan smoke ghosts. What. The. Fuck.
Thirty of them floated, clouding the ring, standing there as if they were
about to start singing a hymn or some shit.
And floating front and center, was…
“Grandma!”
Goody Heath bowed her head and waved sadly to Lydia.
 “Good evening, dear child. I am most dreadfully sorry that I must be here
under such circumstances.”
Bunny whimpered and scampered off, leaving Lydia facing down the
pilgrims.
“I—I don’t get it, Grandma. Who are all these people? What are you doing
here?”
“I’m afraid we have been sent to destroy FW,Y!.,” Goody Heath said, a
ghostly tear trickling down her airy cheek. “Each and every one of you.”
“Wha—whaa—why?” Lydia stuttered, hand fluttering to her chest.
“Who would make you do such a thing? What can Satan possibly want with us?
We’re just innocent entertainers!”
“It’s not Satan, my darling. It’s… Mr. Collin.”
Lydia heard cackling from behind her. She swung around to see Mr. Collin
beating his chest. “That’s right, Lydia! It was me! It was me all along! Ahahahaha!
None of you were pulling your weight. Our box office was pathetic. So I had to
inject a poison into my wrestling organization. And I don’t mean the Poison that
sang the best song ever made, ‘Talk Dirty to Me’.”
Lydia blinked. “So, uh, your first thought was Puritans from hell?”
Mr. Collin looked stumped for a moment, then cackled. “You bet your
sweet ass, bitch! By the way, you never drew a dime.” He threw up his arms.
“Pilgrims! Attack!”
Lydia sprinted to the back. “Darryl! Steve! Bunny! Help!”
 She heard a scrabble as the wrestlers rushed out of the locker room. Gazza
burst out, hurrying over to her. He gripped her arms gently. “Lydia! What’s the
matter, love?”
“Ghost pilgrims,” she gulped out. “Mr. Collin—he sent them to attack us.”
He gaped at her a moment, then rubbed her shoulders. “Lydia, love, I think
that earthquake jogged your head a little. Why don’t we sit down for a bit?”
She pulled away from him. “No, we don’t have time, they’re coming for us.”
She pointed a shaky finger. “Look.”
Everyone turned around and went pale as the Puritans floated toward the
locker room. Goody Heath led the charge, her crooked neck grotesque as she
glared at them sideways.
“I must insist you not impede my progress, granddaughter,” she called to
Lydia. “I will be in dreadful trouble if you do.”
“That bitch is your grandmother?” Bunny exclaimed. “What the hell,
Heath? How do we know you’re not in on this?”
Before Lydia could reply, a ghost threw a laser beam at her. She shrieked as
she ducked, feeling it just singe her hair.
“Where the hell did they get lasers?” Darryl hollered. “Oh. They got them
from hell.”
“Fight back!” Lydia screamed, knowing how futile it was, how absurd.
What the hell—oh, good time to make puns—could they fight back with?
But they couldn’t run, either. Could they?
“Accept your fate, granddaughter, as I accepted mine,” Goody Heath called.
 “Fuck you, Grandma! You never gave me any birthday or Christmas
presents and now you pull this shit? Hell no I’m not accepting it!”
“What are Puritans afraid of? Buttons?” she heard Gazza call.
“I think that’s Amish,” Gregor/Steve commented.
They were all running out of time. The Puritans seemed to have an
unending amount of hell-lasers, and two or three wrestlers had already been
taken out and were sizzling piles of dust on the floor.
“I’ve got it!” Lydia snapped her fingers. “Bunny, have you still got your
boombox?”
“Yeah,” Bunny said from her hiding spot behind a trashcan.
“Play your Alice Cooper tape. Now!”
Bunny scampered toward her boombox and turned it on, blaring “Welcome
to My Nightmare,” as high as it would go.
The Puritans covered their wispy ears and cried out. “This is… this is
Satanic music!” Goody Heath cried. “Fit for devil worshippers!”
“Run! Now!” Lydia cried. She and the rest of the wrestlers hoofed it from
the building as the ghosts continued to writhe in agony.
“No! Nooo! Get back here you ungrateful bastards! I’m docking your pay!”
Mr. Collin bellowed, shaking his fists.
Gazza caught up to Lydia as they continued to sprint down the street. “Er,
thanks for rescuing us back there, love. Fancy going to the Jack in the Box with
me some night?”
Her heart nearly hopped out of her chest as she beamed. “Bitchin’.”
 LIKE, OMIGOD, TOTALLY
Christine Morgan

The girls’ bathroom, a cloud of Aqua Net mist hanging in the air, its astringent
smell artificially sweetened by the cloying scents of competing lip gloss–
bubblegum, strawberry, rootbeer, orange crush. Lurking underneath, the ghost-
whiff of clove smoke. Which weren’t, like, real cigarettes anyway, so, get over it
already! Besides, cancer was for, like, old people. Smoking cloves was boss.
Not that any of them lit up in there; a single spark and the whole room
might’ve gone up, ker-whoosh, in a hairspray fireball inferno.
The mirror-wall above the sinks, packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Big shoulders
for some, the oversized bold-print shirts with shoulder pads, belted by oversized
bright belts on the angle or bias, with oversized buckles … these worn over
leggings, or stirrup pants, and suede ankle boots like omigod so cute! Or loose
fleecy sweatshirts with the collars cut off, leotard straps exposed Flashdance
style. Or mesh Madonna-tops over snug black tanks, with frilly gauzy skirts and
tattered fishnets.
Girls crowded into the AquaNet haze, primping between classes. Hair teased
and frizzed, moussed and sprayed, held with neon headbands or floppy bow-
knotted net scarves. Also neon, because, omigod, neon pink, neon green, neon
orange! Lips sheened shiny and glossy, smoochy-smooch, kissy-kiss. Enormous
dangling earrings–tri-tone, silvery and coppery and gold, totally bitchin! Dramatic
eye make-up! Press-on nails!
And only the right Trapper Keepers would do. Though, like, I mean, school,
grody to the max, gag me with a spoon, how lame was that? But you have to have
the right accessories, couldn’t go around with just some dumb Pee-Chee or
whatever! What really mattered was lunchtime and assemblies, pep rallies,
dances, football games, note-passing.
 Note-passing! Omigod and purple ink? Glitter ink? Purple ink with glitter
outline? Ohhhh-myyy-gawwwd. Dot the i’s with little hearts, make the o’s into
little smiley faces!
After school? The mall, like, totally! The Orange Julius across from the arcade,
where the boys gather, most of them hopeless nerderinos but many not, many
with tight jeans and unlaced high-tops, with piled-up mousse-swoops of hair,
zippery vinyl jackets, emulating Matt or Corey or Michael or Corey or Scott. Pick
up the latest issues of Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, 16, SuperTeen! See if the record
store has Duran Duran, Adam Ant, Cindy Lauper because they just wanna, they
just wan-na-a-a!
If not the mall, home to watch MTV, even if you totally have to pry the
television away from your little brother with his Atari, omigod so annoying. And
your parents nagging you to keep an eye on him all the time, treating you like a
slave, forgetting about how you have, like, a life! It’s so Molly Ringwald, so
Sixteen Candles, couldn’t you just, like, barf? Always telling you to get off the
phone, and that, no, you don’t need your own car, and, like, um, no-o-o, you can’t go
to that party.
Like, what-ever; they don’t understand, they wouldn’t listen, like they care! As
if they’d even notice when you sneak out to go to the party anyway. I mean, how
could you miss it? Everyone who’s anyone will be there, except the dweebs and
the dorks and the losers. Stacey’s a senior, her dad and stepmom totally out of
town for the weekend, and their house has this rad pool, and her cousin’s visiting
from college–he drives a Corvette, omigod, cherry red!–and said he’d bring beer!
It’s going to be like the party, like, the best party ever, so are you really going to
sit around by yourself? What a total bummer!
Pfssssst goes the hairspray, another wafting cloud, primp-primp-preen, and do
they realize how their hair looks from the back? All with this section down the
middle, lanky and, like, indifferent in neglected clumps? No, because from the
front it’s like huge frizz-curl-teased poofy perfection and that’s what counts; like,
what is wrong with you, omigod.
 But what would you know about it anyway? I mean, just look at you.
Not that they do.
Look at you, looking at them, while to them you’re, like, totally invisible.
You with your flat chest, your dork-glasses, your buck teeth. Your K-Mart
clothes, omigod, Blue Light Special.
You, like, tonight. Like, with this, the one time you dare to show up at a party.
And it isn’t even all, like, can you believe it, who invited her?
No one even, like, notices. No one snickers or sneers or does that pitying
eyeroll, or, like, anything. Sipping at a can of beer, all sour and grody, sipping at it
anyway, trying to be cool. With the music too loud, taaaaaake on me take
meeeeee on and ess-ess-ess-ess ayy-ayy-ayy-ayy eff-eff-eff-eff eee-eee-eee-eee
tee-tee-tee-tee why-why-why-why; and smoke everywhere, clove and tobacco and
is someone doing pot?
And there he is, so like handsome, so hurt, him with his bad-boy reputation
and troubled past, and his so-dark-so-dreamy Johnny Depp eyes.
Him with her, blonde and gorgeous, the cheerleader, daddy’s princess, with her
very own sleek white Mustang convertible. All the boys just about drool when
she walks by; she could have any of them with a wink. But it’s him she wants,
him she has, wrapped around her manicured pinkie.
She’ll break his heart. Break his heart, leave him more hurt and more broken,
brooding, tormented, alone. Needing a change. Needing a friend. Someone who’ll,
like, listen, and understand. Who won’t get like totally drunk and on drugs and
shrill with screaming giggles.
Someone who’s just, like, a single act of kindness away from blossoming.
Who’s a makeover away from a magical transformation into true beauty. Like, so
Molly Ringwald, omigod … Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles with her woeful
suffering patience finally rewarded … Molly Ringwald in Breakfast Club as the
fairy godmother to the weirdo.
But when? Like, when already?
Waiting, and waiting, and waiting like forever.
 But there he still is, still with her. Stroking her cheek with the back of his
hand, his curled knuckles. Gazing at her, dark eyes dreamy and soulful. While she
gazes up at him, all adoring, and turns her head slightly to kiss his knuckles. And
his tender smile, vulnerable, trusting … it’s like they’re totally in love, and
couldn’t you just barf? I mean, like, gag me with a spoon!
She’s going to break his heart! She’s so going to! She has to! She totally has to!
Like, if she doesn’t, then what?
Then what?
Then follow her to the bathroom again, at school on Monday, or at the mall.
Follow her, invisible, unnoticed. As they crowd the mirrors, primping and
preening. Slathering on strawberry lip gloss. In their mesh tops, frilly skirts,
neon colors. Fluffing and frizzing and teasing their hair.
Into that hanging mist-cloud of AquaNet.
With a lighter. Click-whoosh.
Fireball hairspray inferno, like, omigod, totally!
 Billy Quest
Jason Rizos

Seven-year-old Billy Franklin walked down Main Street holding a colorful

popsicle, licking idly as he progressed. The boy noticed the old man standing
beneath the green awning of Crowley’s Collectibles, the town comic book store.
This was his friend. The old man wore a blue pin-striped suit, wrinkled and oil-
stained along the sleeves, adorned only with a bolo tie, cinched with an ivory
steer skull. They locked gazes and the birds stopped chirping and everything
grew incredibly still.
“Mr. Carver?”
“That’s right Billy. We are friends, aren’t we, Billy?” He spoke slowly, his
words kind of lilting, almost singing, if not so faint and airy.
“I think so.”
“I have something for you Billy.”
“What is it?”
“Gifts.”
“Oh really?”
“But first, Billy. Did you bring your character sheet?”
“You mean Raymond?”
“Yes, Billy. Like I asked you.”
“I think so.” Billy set the red popsicle on the sidewalk, stripped off his Gremlins
backpack, unzipped it, and produced a single sheet of green lined graph paper.
“Very good, Billy. And you still have the Pole Arm of Agramarth?”
“Yes, Mr. Carver. It’s on the back.”
 He looked at Billy. A grin crept upon Mr. Carver’s face, exposing grey, pallid
teeth. Without breaking his gaze, he reached into his breast pocket. Between his
index and middle finger he held a little red square with the number 6 on it.
“Your gift, Billy.” He reached to the patches on Billy’s sleeve and matched the
6 to the 4 of Den 646, where it adhered as if by magic.
“Gee, thanks for the patch, Mr. Carver.”
“Oh, there is more.” He reached again into his pocket and revealed two
Morgan Silver Dollars. “What is your favorite comic book, Billy?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Just…pick…anything.”
“I guess I like Rasslemania.”
“Wrestlemania! That is perfect. I could not have come up with anything more
perfect than this. Why don’t you step inside and buy yourself the latest copy of
Wrestlemania comic books.”
“Thanks Mr. Carver, that’s really nice of you.”
“We are friends, Billy. Oh, and one more thing. Mr. Carver grasped Billy’s
shirt, gently untucked just one of the shirt tails. “Close your eyes, Billy.” He
then reached to the ground and retrieved the melting popsicle. Mr. Carver gently
swirled the popsicle around Billy’s mouth, and then pressed the blunt tip to his
forehead, where the mark swirled and contorted until it left behind a glyph that
looked like this:ђ.
Maxwell Vaughn heard the rattle of the elk bone wind chime that hung above
the door of his shop.
“Goddamn it.”
 Maxwell stood up from a large table covered in miniature fantasy figurines,
pencils, paper craft dungeons, and colorful dice. His guest, a bushy-haired man
with a thick beard adorned with silver aglets, twitched out of a kind of torpor
when the shop owner leapt from his seat.
Maxwell threw aside the curtain that separated the gaming room from the
tables of boxed comic books and gave Billy Franklin a scornful glance. His hair
was black, spikey, and he wore a leather coat, overclasped with tedious pins and
fasteners. His eyes darted about the unbagged comics on the newsstand.
“You didn’t touch anything, have you?”
Billy looked up at him wistfully.
“We’re closed. Can’t you read the sign?”
Billy held out the two Morgan silver dollars.
“Where did you get those?”
Maxwell thought for a moment he saw someone at the window. He moved to
the front of his store, closed the curtain, checked that the CLOSED sign was
properly situated, and turned the deadbolt.
“I don’t have time for this bullshit right now.”
His guest appeared at the curtain. An oversized man seated in a wheelchair,
green camouflage army shorts revealed two stumps of amputated legs. He wore a
Syd Barrett t-shirt, and his left arm was revealed to be amputated as well.
“The fuck this kid want?” He asked, eyes sunk deep, squinting, and black.
“He wants to buy a comic,” Maxwell sneered. “I’ll get him out of here, Raven.”
“What comic?”
Billy spoke up. “Rasselmania.”
“Are you joking me?” Raven asked. “You seriously read that shit?”
Billy nodded eagerly.
“Have you heard of Grimjack? The Punisher? Dreadstar? Yummy Fur?”
 Billy shook his head.
Raven wheeled himself over to Billy and examined the half-untucked shirt, the
smeared popsicle, the messy hair. He sneered in revulsion. “Christ, Max, you
have to teach the kids in this town a thing or two.”
“Kids in this town are bunch of fuckin’ idiots. I can promise you that.”
“What’s that on your head?” Raven reached to the glyph with an enormous
hand, but Billy backed away in fear. “Is that fuckin’ candy?”
Billy nodded, but backed away, and Raven saw the 666 on his sleeve. This
piqued his curiosity, but this was no time for play.
“Well get him the fuck out of here then and let’s get back to the campaign.”
“Hang on a minute. He’s got some coins with him, they look super fuckin’ old.
I think they say 1880 on them.”
Raven wheeled over to the newsstand. “Ever read Chester’s Buddies?”
“Those comics are boring,” Billy said. “They’re all just words.”
“Have you told anyone you were coming here?” Raven asked. Perhaps there
was a little time for play after all.
“Oh, no,” interrupted Maxwell. “No, no, no. We are not doing that. Not here.
No way. Look, I’ve got a copy of Wrestlemania in the back. You come with me,
stand still, don’t touch a goddamn thing, and I’ll find it. Fuckin’ distributors are
always sending me sample bullshit like that.”
In the back room, Billy stared at the grotesque stumps of the man who
occupied himself with arranging tiny lead figures upon a large sheet of blueprint
paper.
“Is that D&D?” Billy asked.
 Raven lifted an eyebrow. “AD&D. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
Something you would have no hope of understanding. So wait for your fucking
Wrestlemania and try not to piss yourself in the meantime.”
“Can I play?”
“Well, I’m sorry little boy, you can’t play. You have to have a character sheet.
You don’t have a character sheet. Understand?”
“I have a character sheet.” Billy removed his backpack, produced his character
sheet, and placed it before Raven.
Raven looked it over. “Raymond?”
Billy nodded.
“You named your Cleric Raymond? There needs to be a law against this. A
level seven Cleric. Well, I’ll tell you what, kid. You can play.”
Maxwell returned with the comic.
“Looks like the kid wants to play,” Raven said. “Well, this is a little game we
call Mondigo. It’s D&D, but Player vs. Player. You square off against Tuchulcha,
my character. Winner take all. The winner gets to tear up the loser’s character
sheet.”
“Dead?” Billy asked.
“That’s right. Gone, you have to start over. Or I have to.”
“I don’t know.”
“Just to sweeten the deal, if you win, you can have this.”
Raven took from around his neck a rhomboid amulet of dark ruby, hung on a
gold chain, and placed it on the table before him.
“Okay.”
 “First, we roll for first attack.” Raven said. “But, you know what, I’ll concede.
You go ahead and take the first attack.”
Billy snatched a 20 sided die from the table. Maxwell picked up his character
sheet and began examination. “Wait a moment, kid. We have to calculate your to-
hit,” Maxwell said. “Raven’s character has a THACO of minus-ten, and you are
level seven. We are going to need a twenty.”
Without hesitation, Billy threw the die.
20
Raven was happy to see there would be at least a contest here. “Good roll.
And now we calculate for damage.”
Billy rolled again.
20
So, anyway, I cast Meteor Storm on Raymond.”
“Hang on,” Maxwell said, his nose already deep in a tome of weapons. “Says
he’s got the Pole Arm of Agramarth.”
“What?” Raven asked. “Where did you get that?”
“Treasure chest,” Billy explained. “Kidnapping Princess Arna.”
“Arelina,” Maxwell corrected. “Yep, it’s in here. There is a Violet Death Ray
affixed to the blade. He gets to roll for critical. Tuchulcha is level thirty-four, and
with the Percheron vambraces that’s a plus-seven to resist curses and death,
so….he needs….a forty-seven.”
“Mondingo rules,” Raven said. “We do the extra dice.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Maxwell handed Billy a second 20 sided die, and a 8-side.
Billy rolled.
 20 20 8
This time the two adults exchanged glances.
“That’s a hit,” Maxwell said.
“No, this is fine.” Raven said. “No, this is rich. I use my Bugbear Hair of Void,
cancels all status effects, petrifaction, immolation, and death.”
“Raven, you have to activate that prior to battle.”
“I get my saving throw versus death, then. Give me the dice.” He rolled the 20.
1
They were interrupted by the sound of the telephone ringing. They stared at it
for a while. Maxwell lifted it from the cradle.
“Yes. I see.” He cupped his hand over the speaker. “It’s Gary Gygax,” he said
gravely. “He says there is nothing he can do. …Tuchulcha is dead. It’s over.”
“Oh, this is some bullshit. It’s the dice. He has to re-roll.”
“It’s not the dice, Raven. You brought the dice. You saying you loaded your
own dice?”
“I’m saying something is wrong with the…the mark, on his head!”
“What?”
They heard the sound of the elk bone wind chime. Mr. Carver did not so much
walk to the rear of the store as floated.
“Greetings my dear friend Raven.” He held out a hand and the amulet on the
table lifted, floated to Billy, who grasped it and held it close to his chest, staring
into a faint crimson glow.
“Now, kid,” Raven said, his voice now absent of cynical disinterest, “Listen
to me, kid. What’s your name?”
 “Billy.” He mumbled, but didn’t break his gaze away from his treasure.
“You need to give that back. This is deadly serious.”
“No.”
“Tut, tut, Raven. You are no longer in possession of the Eye of Vecna, ill
begotten as it was.”
“I won that relic fair and square, Carver.”
“You traded it for four limbs, Raven, not three.”
“Ok, Billy. If you won’t give it back, you have to summon someone, anyone.
Just use your imagination. Someone strong. Someone very, very strong.”
“You thought you were clever, Raven. You thought you could outsmart me,
save yourself your last limb.”
“Wolverine, Billy! Do Wolverine! Dr. Doom! No, Dr. Strange!”
“Yeah!” Maxwell shouted. “Do Hulk! Bring somebody here who can fight him!
Come on, Billy!”
“Come on, Billy! Goddamn it!” Raven screamed.
“It’s no use,” said Mr. Carver. “You have to burn his character sheet, Billy.
It’s the rules Billy.”
Billy still wouldn’t look away from his prize.
A half melted orange candle on the table spontaneously lit.
Mr. Carver coaxed Billy from his reverie by pushing the Tuchulcha’s character
sheet his way. Billy made haste to hold it over the fire of the candle, where it
incinerated as if printed upon flash paper.
“No!” Raven screamed. “Billy! You little shit!”
 Billy began to cry, he closed his eyes and tried to think of a comic book
character, but could not muster a single idea. He opened his eyes.
There, in the back room of Crowley’s Collectibles, appeared the figure of
Edward Leslie, aka, Brutus the Barber Beefcake wearing a tiger print trench coat,
bow tie, and spandex tights. His eyes were bulging and in his hands he snapped
open and closed a pair pruning shears. His breath seethed through clenched teeth.
“Good, Billy! Now kill him! Kill Carver!”
“Oh, my dear Raven,” Mr. Carver said. “You don’t understand, Billy and I are
friends. Isn’t that right, Billy?”
Billy sniffled. “Yeah,” he croaked through tears.
“Now Billy, we mustn’t leave Raven waiting. He owes us his arm.”
“Yeah…” Billy croaked again.
“Wha! Ha ha!” Beefcake shouted, his head tilting about manically, the shears
snapping in his hands. “Wha ha ha ha ha!”
 Backstage Pass
Crystal Babb

Jessie's plan had fallen through before they had even arrived at the venue.
"Are you serious?" she frowned and looked from Nicole to Vanessa. "Neither of
you?"
Vanessa shrugged, no doubt resigned to failure before she had even started.
Nicole looked around them and asked, wide-eyed, "Can you believe this crowd?"
"Oh, I can believe this crowd," said Jessie and crossed her arms. Menstrual
Patty and the Barbierians sold out almost instantly whenever they came through
town. "What I can't believe is that we couldn't turn up a single guy for this
between the three of us." She shook her head. "Talk about a reality check."
"What's the big deal, Jess?" Vanessa sighed. "Since when did you need a date
for an MPB show?"
"I'm not interested in a date," Jessie snapped, reflexively touching the cassette
Walkman clipped to her studded leather belt.
"Then again I ask: What's the big deal?"
"Yeah, what's with the secrecy?" Nicole chimed in.
"It's a surprise," Jessie said and began scanning the loud and crowded lobby of
the Mountain Valley Performance Center, intent on her mission. "But I can't
make that surprise happen unless we have some guys."
"Maybe we can borrow theirs," Vanessa said airily, indicating the small group
of neon teens clustered near the souvenir table at the back of the room. Jessie
scrunched up her face as if Vanessa had just offered her a New Coke. Natalie
Pendergast, Queen Teen of the Mountain Valley Mean Teens and Mean Teen
Supreme, was holding up a t-shirt and batting her heavily mascaraed eyes at Chad
Evans, current loin-throb of Mountain Valley High and her default boyfriend of
the semester. Her friends, Courtney and Meagan, were doing the same with the
ancillary jocks they had brought with them. All three girls were done up in over-
sized collarless sweatshirts over neon leggings, cinched at the waist with wide
patent leather belts. "Do they think they're here to see Tiffany?" Vanessa
smirked.
Jessie rolled her eyes. "Look," she said, turning her attention back to her
friends, none of which would stand out in this crowd of black leather the way the
Mean Teens did. "It's Nicole's first time and I just want it to be special for her,
okay? Is that so wrong?"
"No," Vanessa said with a shrug. "I just don't get why we have to have guys to
make her first time special."
"I'm not ready for anything that special," Nicole said, owl-eyed.
Just then a cheer went up from the front of the room and the crowd began to
surge forward; the ushers had opened the doors to the auditorium.
"This is going to have to be special enough!" Vanessa shouted over the sudden
roar of excited voices.

"Fucking bogus!" Jessie howled. She had spotted Natalie Pendergast and her
crew near the front of the stage. "How did they get in front of us?"
"Well," said Vanessa, "either she paid someone to hold her spot, or they
teleported."
"I'd believe that," said Nicole soberly. "My pastor says these concerts are
lousy with witchcraft."
"Your pastor's a choad," Jessie snapped.
"Jeez, calm down, Baby Jessica," Vanessa said with a pronounced eyeroll.
"This is still a pretty good spot."
Jessie bristled at the use of the nickname.
"Can't we just enjoy the show?" Nicole pleaded.
"Seriously, Jess," Vanessa said and touched her friend's arm. "Frankie says
relax."
 "Oh, we're going to enjoy the show," Jessie grumbled, glaring at the Mean
Teens in the front row. And then a change came over her. Jessie turned back to
her friends with a smile and said, "I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?" Nicole called after her, anxious of losing anyone in
this crowd that could start moshing at any moment.
"I'll be right back!" Jessie repeated with a dismissive wave before disappearing
into the sea of bodies.

The band was three songs into their set and Jessie still hadn't come back, but
Nicole was clearly unconcerned. Vanessa couldn't help but laugh - she was pretty
sure her friend was having a religious experience. Vanessa hadn't been to church
before, but she imagined it looked a lot like Nicole's dancing - hands reaching
toward the ceiling, eyes closed, head tilted back as she swayed and hopped and
sang along with the band. This wasn't just Nicole's first time at a Menstrual Patty
show - it was her first time at a concert, ever. (Nicole had suggested that the
outdoor Messiahfest concert she had gone to last summer must count; Jessie and
Vanessa had vehemently assured her that it did not.) If her parents knew she
was here they'd have a spaz attack! Vanessa thought and laughed again.
Menstrual Patty and the Barbierians were fierce Amazonian women, all teased
hair, tight, high leather, and miles of make-my-day attitude. Patty herself stalked
and prowled across the stage, dragging the mic stand with her as she screamed
the lyrics to songs like "Make You My Slave" and "Cosmic Kidnapper" in a voice
that sounded like Cyndi Lauper hated-fucked Pat Benatar. It was not the type of
music she would have expected girls like Natalie Pendergast and her crew to
listen to, but here they were.
Or rather, Vanessa realized, there they had been. Natalie and the Mean Teens
were no longer near the stage, though the boys were still there, hoppin'-and-
boppin' along.
 The band was halfway through "Eat Your Enemies" when Jessie suddenly
reappeared from somewhere off-screen, animated and breathless.
"Hey!" Vanessa hailed. "Where have you been? You've missed most of the
concert!"
"I solved our problem!" Jessie shouted back, dancing, and grinned just a little
too wide. Her eyes sparkled. The lights in the auditorium were doing strange
things to her face. Vanessa glanced over at the boys Natalie Pendergast had
brought, curiously abandoned by their dates, and suddenly Vanessa felt uneasy.
"How'd you do it?" she asked as the music ended and the crowd erupted into
rapturous shrieks and cheers. Jessie's response was immediately drowned out,
but Vanessa saw her lips moving, thought she saw Jessie's black-lipsticked
mouth form words she couldn't possibly have said, and was about to shout
"What?" when Jessie laughed and pointed at Nicole, who seemed to be coming
out of her trance.
"Having a good time?" Jessie called and Nicole nodded vigorously. "Just you
wait," Jessie continued, "it's about to get even more gnarly! But first, I need you."
Vanessa watched Jessie reach into the pockets of her leather jacket and pants,
pulling random bills from every other one. She pushed a large crumpled wad of
paper currency into Nicole's hand and said, "To go buy a t-shirt. And you, Nessa
darling." Jessie put an arm around Vanessa's shoulders and pulled her close, the
better to say directly into her ear, "You're going to help me wrangle our golden
tickets."

"I can't believe we're going backstage!" Nicole was positively vibrating with
excitement, bouncing on her toes as Jessie knocked on the door to the green
room. She had her new t-shirt gripped firmly in both hands, pressed over her
heart. Nicole had arrived at the venue a mousy church girl, but she would be
returning past curfew as a young lady altogether transformed. Jessie smiled,
pleased.
 "How'd you pull this off, Jess?" Vanessa asked, voice low so the guys couldn't
hear. "Nobody gets backstage at a Menstrual Patty show."
"They do if they know the secret password," Jessie replied and patted her
Walkman. "Remember what I was telling you about the other day at Sam Goody?
How my tape deck ate my cassette so I had to get a new one? Well, that wasn't
the whole story." Jessie leaned in and said, "There was a message on the tape. A
backwards message."
"No way!" Chad scoffed.
Jessie shot him a look and said, "Yes way!"
"Everyone knows that's an urban legend," Zack chimed in.
"Yeah," said Kevin, nodding. "Totally bogus."
"Did the message have anything to do with these bozos?" Vanessa asked,
inclining her head toward their new dates.
"Let me guess," Zack smirked. "It turns out they killed Paul!"
"Close!" Jessie replied with an overly sweet smile. She looked over at Nicole,
who was standing near Chad and trying to find the balance between too-little and
too-much eye contact. "Hey." Jessie nudged her. "Don't get too attached."
Nicole blushed and looked away.
"What's taking so long?" Chad complained.
"Take a chill pill, babe," Jessie said. She raised her fist to knock again,
knuckles millimeters from contact when the door swung open with a dramatic
woosh! Jessie stood there giving the solidarity gesture to a large bald man
without a shirt. He looked like an extra from a Conan movie and crossed his
beefy arms across his oiled chest.
"Password," he rumbled.
Jessie straightened up, squared her shoulders, and proclaimed, "We have an
appointment."
The bald man said nothing in return, instead casting a searching glance across
Jessie, Vanessa, and Nicole, then clearly appraised the boys behind them. Finally
he nodded and stepped aside, extending one arm in an after-you gesture.
 Jessie looked at her friends, eyes wide and glittering with excitement. "Brace
yourselves!" she said and stepped inside.

The dressing room did not look like anything that was part of the venue. The
lights were dim and red. Gauzy curtains were hung everywhere and nests of
plush, velvet cushions were scattered across the floor. Candles flickered in low
glass votives on shelves that lined the walls, or in standing candelabras placed
perilously close to the curtains.
The bald man walked past them and disappeared through a curtain near the
back of the room.
"Where are the chicks?" Zack asked as he took the lead and wandered over to
a low table that held a carafe filled with a neon purple liquid. He lifted it to his
face and sniffed. "Whoa!" he exclaimed. "It smells like paint!" He took a massive
swig, smacked his lips and screwed up his face. "Tastes like Bartles and Jaymes!"
"Put that down and get back over here!" Jessie hissed.
"You should listen to your female better," came a familiar voice. Menstrual
Patty herself soon appeared, sweeping through the curtain at the back of the
room. She appraised the group, taloned and manicured hands on her leather-and-
fishnet-clad hips, then looked to Jessie, who was still too star-struck to speak.
"You have brought us an offering."
Jessie nodded. "Totally," she said, breathless.
"So," interrupted Chad, "is this the after party or what?" He waggled the half-
empty carafe at them, his purple-stained lips turned up in a lop-sided grin. "Cuz
we're gonna to need more of this."
Patty looked at him and frowned. "This one appears brain-damaged."
"It's not just an appearance," Vanessa muttered.
Patty snapped her fingers and the rest of the band soon appeared behind her.
"Fit them with restraints," she instructed, "and load them into the ship." Her
bandmates nodded and moved toward the boys.
 "Did you say ship?" asked Vanessa.
"I meant tour bus," Patty amended.
"They're going with you?" asked Nicole.
"They will be presented to our queen upon our return to our plan-... ah, our
home. There, they will serve the rest of their days as pleasure servants."
"Bitchin'!" the boys exclaimed and high-fived.
"It's still slavery, idiots," said Jessie.
"Yeah," said Kevin with a dopey, lecherous grin. "Sex slavery!"
Once the boys were ushered out of the room, Patty turned to them and said,
"You may name your reward."
At this, Jessie nudged Nicole forward. "Go on," she stage-whispered to Nicole.
"I love your music, Miss Patty!" Nicole squeaked. She held out the t-shirt.
"Can I have your autograph?"
 Three Days In The Eighties
Dustin Reade

My mother came into the room wearing these sweet shades that flared out at
one end. She pulled them down seductively with one finger, looked at me, and
said, “Hey, Stan. You wanna go for a cruise in my Mazda RX-7?”
“Radical,” I said, which was what we said in those days. “Are we gonna go to
the mall or what?”
“Naw,” my mom said. “We’re just gonna cruise around and be alive in the
Eighties.”
She was deadly serious as she said, “The Nineteen Eighties are the absolute
best and most tubular time to be alive. Huey Lewis exists in here with us, and so
does a young Howie Mandel. The Howard the Duck movie just came out, and
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off grossed $70.1 million over a $5.8 million budget, and there
is little to be lost in assuming it will stand the test of time along with other
Eighties staples like The Karate Kid, Twisted Sister, and He-Man toys.”
Just then, my father wandered into the room.
“Somebody talkin’ about the Eighties in here?”
“Yeah,” my mother told him. “I was just telling Michael here about how
amazing and wonderful this decade is proving itself to be.”
“My name is Stan,” I corrected her, but she shook her head.
“Not anymore,” she told me. “Michael is the most popular boy’s name in the
Eighties, so that’s your name now.”
I thought about it. Michael. It was a good name. A popular name. I puffed my
chest out proudly, and said, “What a wonderful decade the Eighties are!”
 “Damn straight,” my father agreed. “Reagan, Michael Jackson, Huey Lewis
and His News Team, WKRP in Cincinnati…”
He trailed off and the three of us just sat there for a really long time.
Three days, in fact.
For three days in the 1980’s, me and my family just sat in my room, not talking,
just thinking about how amazing the Eighties were.
It was the absolute best time of my entire life.
 Contributators

Crystal Babb is a writer of mildly weird short stories that, in the past, seem to
have centered on food (Baby Carrot; The Patissier) or unexpected violence (The
Follow Game).

Laura Lee Bahr is the author of Haunt, Long-Form Religious Porn, and Angel Meat,
published by Fungasm Press.

Jillian Bost has had several short horror stories published by Feed Your Monster,
Fundead Publications, and The Flash Fiction Press. Recently she was published in
the dark fiction anthology Drabbledark.

Brian Evenson is the author of A Collapse of Horses, The Warren, and Last Days.

Vince Kramer is the last of his race and the author of Gigantic Death Worm,
Death Machines of Death, Deadly Lazer Explodathon, and the forthcoming Hell of
Death.

Christine Morgan divides her writing time among many genres, from horror to
historical, from superheroes to smut, anything in between and combinations
thereof. She's a future crazy-cat-lady and a longtime gamer, who enjoys British
television, cheesy action/disaster movies, cooking and crafts. Her books include
Sperm Jackers from Hell and The Raven’s Table.

Dustin Reade is an enigmatic figure who needs to write more books. Already
written are Grambo, Bad Hotel, and his novelette “The Canal,” included in The
Strange Edge’s novelette anthology Four Gentlemen of the Apocalypse.
Jason Rizos hails from the prototypical American suburbs that surround the city
of St. Louis, Missouri. In 2005, he escaped, and now resides in Portland, Oregon.
He is the author of Supercenter and Prom Night on the River of Death. They let
him teach college at Portland Community College.

Matt Vest is a filmmaker and writer who should really write a book already. You
should watch his hilarious mash-up parody, Star Trips with Joe Rogan, on
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9VhiZMNoCAWKk23MX4P6QA

Jim Agpalza is an artist and illustrator whose work is all over the Bizarro scene.
Check out more of his work here: https://jimagpalza.com/. He is responsible for
the two really good pieces of art in this issue.

Casey Babb is the husband of Crystal Babb and helped us by making the logo used
on the front cover. He does better stuff too: https://www.breakingbabb.com/