Walls of Flesh by Lily Childs

They are dark but I can clearly make out the striated slashes in the deepest of red. How you ever came to decorate this palace with the freshest of corpses I can never know. But it matters not.

Your obsession with my skins seems the baddest of fanhood. Your adoration of the dances that my girls perform before and after death – it is indeed perfectly justified. Yes, I receive your letters – daily. Yes, I sometimes read them, coarse as they are with poor grammar and despicable spelling but I confess I appreciate the scent and how you vary it with odours emitted from various orifices – yours and others.

Your invitation was most welcome. Is your name truly ‘Vidal’? It has connotations, you know. I’m a sucker for film and fashion, which of course you do know.

How did you do it? How many did it take? It’s a frenzy the like of which I have never seen; or at least, not for many years. It is something of which I thought only I was capable.

The crusted, sunburnt flakes - blemishes and hair intact within the box at my door – an inspired tease; you knew I would bite. The Classifieds in the NY Times – over the top. I ignored them you know. It meant waiting; I nearly gave up.

But this morning’s gift was a bliss of obscene design and forethought. I bow to your genius. An invitation to my own funeral wrapped in a membranous envelope, tied and knotted with lengths of my hair. I awaited the promised carriage with disinterest and desire, lest you couldn’t deliver and I would have to scratch my own itch.

Who is she, hanging here on the left beside the Modigliani? I saw her once, I think, on the silver screen. The eyes so intricately repositioned within the slits in the ribs beneath her breasts suggest a four-eyed monster. Delicious. I commend you. Take her down, before the flesh gives out. 

Dinner? I don’t feed, surely you know that. But oh! What a masterpiece. Guests at your feast; it must be so easy for you. The minions flock to your every appearance, hang on your slightest word. You are politics, religion and ethics in one single man. The world applauds you – as do I. In this your banqueting hall – an altar to Old Money and Holy Sanctuary – I am truly spent. Bodies lie plaited and overlapped the full length of the oak table, each gut split and stuffed with basted animal offal which spills onto the cloth. I cannot eat but I can embrace. I mount the parade, fingering and sucking at the corporeal repast as I slide through its treasures. Until here we are; face to face.

Do I know you? You offer me a goblet inscribed with my name; the blood inside is hot and I know it is yours, spilled freshly from your wrists. I won’t drink of you. You can dedicate your life to me for as long as you can bear. I don’t want that life; I need only your death. Not a sacrifice, not a willing soul.


I am home, Vidal. Evanesced. For all of your dedication, you will be mine at the time of my choosing – if I choose you. I confess you impress, but my tastes - you must surely understand are not for the willing and the desperate but for those who are blind to my art and my craft and are innocent of darkness.

Wipe your monastery clean of death and decay, Vidal. Invite instead those seeking God, as your vestments declare. For then I will take my unwilling disciples. What better prey than those who pray?

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Congratulations to Col Bury!

Great news! Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers co-editor and crime writer Col Bury has proved that hard work and tenacity can pay off. Col has been signed by New York Literary Agent Nat Sobel, with his first novel taking them forward together.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Col has been very supportive of my own writing, in fact it was him who first encouraged me to submit to TKnC, and I haven't stopped writing since. Col is also a regular contributor to Writers' News and Writing Magazine's online forum Talkback where his advice is generously given. Great to see you getting rewarded, Col. You deserve it matey.

We look forward to hearing about the rest of your journey towards success.

All the best, Col

Lily/x

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Little Demon - for Chris Allinotte

Chris, after reading your marvellous little tale of veg and demons, I happened across these photos of my own little Demon. She doesn't like spinach either.

Little Demon with Daddy

Little Demonette

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Lily's Friday Prediction

Another 'just past midnight' call - here in England, at least.

It's been a productive week with 12500 words of 'Dispirited' (da novel) typed up. I've another 30k of the handwritten stuff to type up and edit before I have to break through that block and spill out the remaining 50k of Alex's story - and it's a nasty one - as is Alex. Or is she really?

Anyway, this is not the place for unsolicited publicity. Let's take a look at this week's threesome, about which I am particularly amused. Two of them are so obvious you may think them deliberately contrived; they're not! Honest.

So here they are. I expect some real goodies in response this week. As usual, 100 words max, excluding title, using the EXACT word(s) - not different tense or plurals.

Please add your entries to the Comments box below. Good luck.

• Carotid artery [I know! Honest - it really did come up]
• Dominion
• Spinach (there's the challenge)

Here you go...

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Pat-a-Cake by Lily Childs up at TKnC

Hungry?

Feed yourself up with my new nasty 'Pat-a-Cake' over at Thrillers Chillers 'n' Killers.
Thanks to Lee Hughes TKnC co-editor for publishing it.

Excerpt from Pat-a-Cake:

Roger’s thoughts are black. He is tipping back and forth on shoes wrapped in blue plastic bags. He could be a coroner, he thinks, or a forensic scientist. But he is a confectioner.

Everything’s a weapon. Roger hungers to use one. He spots the sharp corners of this morning’s loaf tins, sitting clean and stacked on the shelves in the back. They’d puncture nicely; he daydreams about the holes they’d make.

Read the full story...

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Etheric Fields by Lily Childs

“Thief.”

Gerald blinked. It was the first word out of the woman’s mouth since she’d entered his cubicle. He eyed her carefully. He’d take the photograph, but if she couldn’t pay she’d be out on her ear.

“I’m not sure what you mean my dear. Please - place your hands on the sensor pads either side of the seat.”

He twiddled the ends of his fat, ginger moustache. He liked to look smart; it pleased the ladies.

Her face in perfect focus, Gerald snapped. Although her aura would only appear once he’d developed the photograph Ransome prided himself in predicting the results. Deciding his customer was somewhat unhinged he envisioned swathes of volatile purple tinged with morose black and fiery red stains exploding around her head. He leaned in and took a second shot, to keep for himself.

There was no-one there.

Frowning, Ransome stood up straight. The only door was behind him. The woman had been thin, emaciated even, but she couldn’t possibly have got past him to the door without pushing him out of the way. The room only measured eight feet by ten and felt even smaller, crammed as it was with the heavy chair and the recording apparatus. Ransome shook his head, unnerved. There was nowhere else for her to have gone. He opened the cubicle door and stared through the crowds milling around the pier.  Ice-creams melted in sticky hands; laughing kids showered the decks with tasteless popcorn. Gerald gave up, flipped his Open for Business sign over to Back in Ten Minutes and locked the door. Inside the cubicle he flicked the development switch on the bulky machine.

He waited.

The print deposited itself in the tray, glistening with fluid. Ransome let the image dry before picking it up to see if his predictions were correct. The woman’s face, pale as moonlight shone through the dark clouds of her aura. Gerald squinted. Something about her seemed familiar. He peered harder.

The eyes flashed.

“You stole my SOUL.”

The spirit rushed at him; forcing itself down his throat. The entity plunged through his heart, wormed into his brain.

“Remember me?”

The thing unwound inside his skull, flipping the years back in sheaves. Ransome clutched his head in agony as the slideshow of images projected into his head with relentless speed.

Then he did remember; clearly recalling the body, and his fists, and the blood… so much blood. He howled in shame that he had ever allowed himself to forget.

Claudette. His first model. Ravaged. Left for dead. Buried in a shallow grave.

Ransome clawed his guilty chest as Claudette evacuated his body. He fell - unable to catch his breath, to the ground of the locked cubicle. The machine clicked and whirred into life, developing the second, empty shot.

They found the corpse with a photo lodged tight in its hand. Waves of black, purple and red swam around the image. Its subject’s eyes were missing, the nose had been crushed and the lips torn away. Inside the slash of a mouth, broken teeth studded the swollen tongue.  The only feature unscathed in the final portrait of the photographer - Gerald Ransome, deceased - was a magnificent moustache, combed and waxed and curled at the edges, all the better to please the ladies.

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A 200-word version of Etheric Fields first appeared in Writers News online forum Talkback's monthly One Word Challenge under the theme 'Waves'. I felt it needed plumping up a bit, hence the above.

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An Exquisite Read

I have just come away awestruck from D. A. Hernandez' story CHRYSALIS over at that masterful horrorfare THE NEW FLESH.

It is one of the most beautiful, dark and astonishing pieces of fiction I have read in a long time. The extraordinary descriptions leap, crackling with metamorphosis, off the screen. You can hear it, you can sense it, and Christ can you see it.

Stunning.

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