Category Archives: Freaks

Flash Fiction, Freaks

Tick Tick Tick

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The room was not large, just a conference room in the library where ten of us sat around a table writing.  It was a typical Saturday morning workshop and the prompt was part of the lyrics to the Star Wars theme.  The music rattled around my brain easily enough but for some reason I couldn’t recall it ever having lyrics.  I was frustrated.  I drew a blank while everyone else was scribbling away…and the music in my head became louder, incessant…persistent…..maddening!

tick-tick-02    It suddenly stopped when a new sound caught my attention.  It was coming from Keith at the other end of the table.  There was a tick, tick, ticking that quickly replaced my obsession – in perfect rhythm and beat – to those lyrics, whatever they were…tick, tick, ticka, ticka-ticka, tick, tick.  I was tapping my toe on the carpet now…ticka-ticka, tick, tick.  Louder and louder it got, tick, ticka, tick…Keith was writing intensely.  Tick, tick-ticka.  How could he not hear it?  Tick-tick, ticka-tick.   Was I the only one?  Ticka-tick-ticka, tick.  Was that smoke coming out of his ears?  Tick-tick.  Coooool!  Ticka-tick-ticka.  The ticking got faster as bright beams of light began to emerge from his skull.  Tick-ticka-ticka-ticka-tick.  It filled the room…blinding me…..ticka-ticka-ticka…BANG!!!!!

Like a mouse in a microwave, the walls, floor and ceiling were suddenly pasted with Keith juice and bits of sticky flesh and bone.

Still, nobody seemed to notice.  Everyone just kept on writing even as a slippery chunk of bowel slid down Carl’s face and a bloody ear clung to the end of Joe’s pencil.  Keith’s head and chest were gone and his fluids were squirting Susan’s cheek…but he kept on writing as well.  Susan paused to open an umbrella and brush gore off her laptop, unmoved.

Everything was quiet for a few minutes as pens scribbled on wet paper and blood dribbled and pooled in my under shorts….then the ticking started again…but this time it sounded like it was coming from Nancy…..tick, tick, tick…coooool!

***The illustration was originally published as the cover for Analog Magazine’s Jan/Feb 2012 issue, for a story by Robert J Sawyer.  The story is based on true events that go on from 10am to 12pm every Saturday morning at the Montclair, NJ Library.  All are welcome to write…to tick…and eventually explode.   -Marsha

Flash Fiction, Freaks, Sci-Fi

Goblin

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Don’t look at me like that!  I always knew he was a Goblin.  He made no secret of it.  I thought he was kinda hot…in that greenish, warty way – with his long, sharp tusks and rancid smell of rotting puppies.  Turns out we have a lot in common – HAH!!…not what you’re thinking (my tusks are neither long nor sharp).  Really though, both of us have always had terrible luck in romance with our own species.  Why, just yesterday he confided to me that despite my incredible human ugliness, I was so much better than any ogress he’d ever had (so adorable)…and I had to admit the same.  Intellectually, we’re a perfect match.  He loves my awful Clown poetry and I love when he stomps about smashing things with a fat gnarly club – while we both hate smartass intellectuals and have a kinky thing for exotic firearms…..aaaaaah, true love at last.

***This should, in no way, be construed as a true story (and you better keep your damned mouth shut Delia, you weren’t even there!).  The illustration was first used in 2013 by Surprising Stories DCWI (an online sci-fi magazine)…and HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!   -Marsha

Flash Fiction, Freaks, Sci-Fi

A Stranger’s Fleeting Glance

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He was lonely. He saw her on a crisp Tuesday morning as he got on the train. She gave him just a fleeting glance…but he was lonely and it was enough. She was attractive. His mind wandered after her all day….no, it raced!

He saw her the following Thursday. She smiled at him (he thought) and he lost himself again in sweet daydreams full of romance.

He was lonely.

Two days later, in a light snow, he saw her drop a glove without noticing. He got there first and took it to her…she thanked him in a voice like pure milk chocolate. He was SO lonely. He dreamed of them holding hands on the beach, of spooning by the fire, of marriage and contentment. She was so nice…so perfect…

Monday night was a late night at work – a late train home – a late walk through the park toward his lonely apartment building. He saw her standing in the cold. She greeted him with a warm smile. They spoke together quietly. His fatigue melted into a pool of elation…anticipation…happiness. This was his moment! She was so much more wonderful than he ever dreamed. He asked her to join him for a drink – perhaps dinner – sometime? She smiled as she reached elegantly into her purse…pulled out an exotic handgun and forcibly inserted the barrel into his left nostril. And as she fleeced him of his wallet, cash and remaining self esteem, she melted into a screaming demon harpy…..and shot him in both kneecaps before she walked away.

He never saw her again but his loneliness wasn’t much of an issue for a long while after.

***Aaaaaaaah!  There’s nothing like a bit of romance to soothe those lonely winter nights.  This little piece sums it all up neatly for people in our modern society.  Some writers waste volumes to come to the same conclusion about relationships.  John’s image was first published in the November 2013 issue of Analog Magazine.  This is reposted from 2 years ago to warn you away from pathetic Valentines Day dreams.   -Marsha 

Flash Fiction, Freaks, Sci-Fi

How Do I Look?

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Nothing actually happened for a solid fifteen minutes after Eddie drank the formula.  He turned to us (once again) with a forlorn look and asked, “Any change yet?  How do I look?”

We knew he was crazy.  He was one of those people: perpetually dissatisfied, determined to prove that he was ‘special’.  He wanted fame, popularity, success (despite being an already brilliant scientist) and he was driven…you know, crazy…AND he had full use of the company’s laboratory.  He had access to all the good stuff too;  plasma reactor, laser diffractional transmogrifier, crazy glue – not to mention ebola, thermite and flu vaccine…and I think our awkward, mild mannered (crazy) Eddie used all of it on this new batch.

By the sixteenth minute, everything changed and Eddie’s fondest wish was realized.  He began mutating wildly, spreading outward in every direction, emitting the strangest squeaking moan.  He shook, twisted and bloated.  He grew tendrils, sprouted claws and screeched Latin gibberish from three of his seven worm-haired monkey faces as horns emerged from his leathery spine.  He puffed a sweet yellow smoke, shed tufts of pink fur and dribbled buckets of gooey puss.  He was a frightful sight…but he was just sooooo excited we didn’t have the heart to terminate him.

When he finally slowed and stabilized, he turned all of his seventeen eyes-on-a-stalk to us and in a clever series of musical farts, he asked, “Okay!…How do I look now?”

***This brings me right back to my days writing side-effects disclaimers for big Pharma…and Eddie helped me come up with some doozies.  He’s still alive and well and the subject of great intrigue at a secret government laboratory in Nevada.  I think the locals refer to it as “a sighting” every time he manages to get out for a stroll.  John’s image was his very first cover for Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (Jan. 2003).  This is reposted from around this time in 2016…another good old one to wear away the winter days.   -Marsha

Book Exerpt, Clowns, Freaks

Fudge the Clown

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There once was a Clown named Fudge,                                                     whose bowels refused to budge.                                                                       He’d sit and he’d sit                                                                                                         but just couldn’t shit,                                                                                                       not even a gob or a smudge.

***Fudge was the first ‘REAL’ Clown we ever interviewed (who we regard with some affection), as he exploded shortly after John sketched out this scene.  He turned out okay but destroyed a 14-store strip mall – along with 27 parked cars – and pasted us all in fudge…we laughed…..and laughed…    I’ve reposted this one, our 5th post,  from Nov., 2015, as it has finally been published in our new book “Bludgeon the Clown.”   -Marsha

Clowns, Freaks

Happy Holidays!

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Lester the Jester threw up his supper,                                                   emerging instead as a fool named Skupper                                                  who gagged on his guts as they spilled from his gob                                      expelling another named Bob,                                                                             who horked up a loogie of phlegm and bile,                                                        appearing at last as a Jester named Lyle                                                               who stuck out his tongue and said with a leer                                             “Happy Christmas to all and a Merry New Year.”

 

Clowns, Flash Fiction, fragment, Freaks

Labyrinth

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      His dreams were frantic.  She was always just out-of-reach and each time he caught a glimpse, she was further away than before as he chased her through the labyrinth of his anxiety.  He KNEW he was only dreaming…  he KNEW she lay right next to him, asleep…but he could neither escape any more than catch up to her.  And as his heart broke apart and crumbled to pieces for the one he had loved unconditionally, he realized that these pathetic dreams were better than his reality.  This was all he had left, so he relished in the chase each night…..for just one more night…and tried to remember all the good things they’d had for a few precious moments more…before she faded completely, leaving him alone in the labyrinth.

***My poor friend Balthazar lost his cat recently…well, she’s not missing – we’re not out searching or anything – I mean, he had a falling out with his precious Miss Fuzzy Britches a few weeks ago and hasn’t been able to patch things up.  I wrote this little piece for them…though I don’t hold out much hope.  Meanwhile, our new book is out; “Bludgeon the Clown.”  It’s beautiful and awful and available by following the link at the top/right to our site;  www.sallemander.com .  -Marsha

Flash Fiction, fragment, Freaks, Sci-Fi

Aghast

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When Mike rented his new place he’d never even tried a hot tub before. It wasn’t the feature that attracted him to the building. It was the two extra bedrooms – that would allow his grown kids to visit on holidays and between college semesters – that he liked most. Six months went by before he even tried it out, but when he did….it was gooood! In fact it felt wonderful…so relaxing, it took all his cares away.

He came back to it again and again and started making time, once a week, to soak in its warm embracing waters, gently massaging jets and steamy, soothing solace. Soon he found himself hopping in every day – even twice a day. A quick soak before the morning commute or a nice long one after the stress of a long day’s work became an absolute necessity. He felt an affinity for it bordering on affection. He lost himself in the comfort and imagined himself in the warm embrace of the womb.

     “Mmmmmmm!” he said…..wait…did he just say that? Strange, his voice seemed unusually low today, must be the bathroom acoustics …yeah! He relaxed again and submitted, to the moist tongues of ecstasy lapping his exhausted body….. “OOOOOOH, SCRUMMMPTIOUS!” he said in a deep, slow baritone.

Mike’s eyes bugged out as he leapt from the tub, twisting and convulsing like a housewife covered in spiders. Aghast, he screamed, “What the…I didn’t say that!?!” “OOOOH….DON’T GO MY LITTLE LOLLIPOP…..COME BAAACK.” said the booming voice from the tub. “Huh?” was all he could manage, shaking and dripping on the tiles, “AAAAAAAW,” boomed his tub, “MY SAUSSSSAGE DUMMMPLING, MY SPICY LITTLE MEATBALLL…..COME BACK TO MEEEEEE…I COULD JUST EEEEEAT YOU UP!!!”

***The image above is “AGHAST” recently published in our newest book “Bludgeon the Clown.”  Before that, it was loaned out as the cover to a book of flash-fiction entitled “Aghast” by Joe Del Priore (a VERY funny book and well worth reading).  But it was originally commissioned by Analog Magazine for their Jan/Feb 2007 issue.  This post was our 3rd post ever, from Oct., 2015.  Follow the www.sallemander.com links above to find all of my books.   -Marsha

Clowns, Freaks, Political

NAUGHTY!!!

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***Of course, we’ve been friends with Santa Clause since we were kids and got a great interview with him for our “Bludgeon the Clown” book (although the publisher cut it in the final edit).  Still, we were surprised when he showed up on Thanksgiving for a free meal (and this guy can really stack and pack it).  But he REALLY stunned us with a  whopping order of all 3 of our new books.  He mentioned (mumbled) something like “…can’t use COAL in naughty peoples stockings any more ’cause it’s TOXIC…so…..ho, ho, ho!”  Well, fantastic!  He loves it!  You should get one too.   -Marsha