Sarah Wilson’s journey takes a deadly turn when she uncovers secrets about her past, hidden deep in her mother’s memories, that threaten everything Sarah wants. They could cost her everything she holds dear—and her life.
by Alden Terzo
Fluorescent light flickered across the cracked, stained walls. The bitter aroma of disinfectant tried and failed to mask the immutable stench of despair. Gary sat, restrained, across from Dr Franklin and another.
“Gary, this is Dr Guhya,” Dr Franklin said.
“You’re not doctors!” Gary spit. “You’re aliens in disguise!”
“We’re both aliens?” Dr Guhya asked.
“Yes!”
“And the nurses and orderlies?”
“Aliens!”
“I see.” Behind her disguise, Dr Guhya’s reptilian mouth quivered and drooled with relief. She was the only Klazonian undercover at the facility. The human was delusional, not a seer.
The advance team for the invasion was safe.
Alden Terzo
When Alden Terzo isn’t reading, he’s often writing. Or procrastinating. There is usually coffee involved. Find him on Twitter @AmbassadorAlden
by Kristin Lennox
I’d been looking forward to this tour for months. Every spring, Brookhaven Psychiatric Hospital opens its doors to the public, for PR purposes.
The facility was bright and welcoming on the surface. But a faint sour aroma lingered beneath the lemon-scented air, and the light jazz playing in the sunroom couldn’t quite drown out the occasional disturbing cry.
As the bus departed, I sat by myself, contemplating my visit. We passed through the iron gates, leaving Brookhaven and its mysteries behind…
…and I have about three hours until they discover the tourist I bludgeoned and stuffed into the broom closet.
Kristin Lennox
Kristin is delighted to have had several drabbles published by Black Hare Press. She’s also a voice actor, and when she’s not talking to herself in her padded room (home studio), she tries to get the voices out of her head and onto the page
by Tracy Davidson
Which is more psychotic? Doctors in white coats with their hammers and drills, or screaming patients, helpless, in their restraints and straitjackets?
Once, I’d have said the patients. Before I came here, to inspect the place. They’re not patients at all. Nor inmates. They’re prisoners. They come in and never go out again.
I know. My report would have closed the whole asylum down, doctors struck off, arrested. I never got out either.
“A sudden psychotic break,” they told the authorities. Nobody questioned, nobody came.
Now, I scream too. In tune with those who died here, and those still dying.
Tracy Davidson
Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Poet’s Market, Mslexia, Atlas Poetica, Modern Haiku, The Binnacle, A Hundred Gourds, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR, In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights.
by Sean Donaghue Johnston
It was late. The only sounds were the buzzing of the fluorescent lights, the moaning of drugged patients, and Dr Laroche’s footsteps.
A swipe of the keycard and Dr Laroche was in the common room, now empty. Another swipe and he was at the “welcome” desk, unmanned at this hour. A retinal scan got him out of the psych ward and into the main corridor of the hospital.
He went down the stairs and out an emergency exit, tossed the orderly’s keycard and eyeball into the bushes, and slipped into the dark city streets to hunt for his next “patient.”
Sean Donaghue Johnston
Sean Donaghue Johnston teaches philosophy at Niagara University and Canisius College, and lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, with his wife Caroline and their two children, Atticus and Finula. His fiction has appeared in Tales from the Radiator, Space Squid, Every Day Fiction, and Broken Pencil Magazine.
by David Staiger
Dr Reynolds shook his head insistently.
“Some patients, sadly, must be more fully restrained, for their own safety. This one attempted to eat his tongue the other day. Thus the dental guard.”
The reporter and her camerawoman each took a turn peering through the soundproofed safety glass before nodding absently and moving down the row of doors, continuing the impromptu tour.
Patient 124 studied his own reflection, correcting again that same disobedient hair, sparing a bare smile at the well-trussed figure in the room raging back at him.
Then he, too, moved along, leaving the good doctor to his fury.
David Staiger
David is an emerging fiction author, always on the lookout for new opportunities to expand his writing. His previous work has been featured in Festival of Fear, from Black Ink fiction and Year Four from Black Hare Press.
by Pauline Yates
Beechwood Psychiatric Hospital’s new nurse has a head full of ideas, like “kindness begets kindness”, that sort of shit. I play along. I stop smacking my head against the wall when she asks me, politely, mind you, to take my pills. Now she lets me eat ice cream with a spoon. I want her to eat ice-cream, too, but she won’t…
won’t…
won’t…
And that makes my head hurt like the spoon scoops out my brain. So I make her eat. Eat, and eat, until all her ideas burst out of her head.
I scoop them up and swallow them, too.
Pauline Yates
Pauline Yates lives in Australia and writes horror and dark fiction.
Website: paulineyates.com
EROTIC HORROR