Writer’s Ring, a writing club and artist association at SUNY Fredonia, hosted a Halloween Poetry and Prose contest in late October. The competition was hosted by Professor Sheehan, Professor Cuthbert and Professor Liggins. The contest winners are below:
First Place Poetry: Ashley Halm
Accident
Put down your ax, come in from the cold
My love, my sweet and innocent girl
The night is dark and creatures are wild
Your hands were not meant for digging
My love, my sweet and innocent girl
Your hands were not meant for digging
Please come inside, I’ll run you a bath
Scrub the blood from your fingernails
Your hands were not meant for digging
You didn’t mean to do it, I know
Scrub the blood from your fingernails
Come hide with me until the morning
You didn’t mean to do it, I know
The night is dark and creatures are wild
Come hide with me until the morning
Put down your ax, come in from the cold
Alibi
We’ll say the blood on both our hands is mine
A stupid kitchen accident, we’ll laugh
We’ll drive through the morning to the state line
Find a motel and pay the bill in cash
Red hair dye for you and brown for me
The red-blue lights have passed, just close the blinds
We’ll have to wait till morning news to see
Who gets to the scene first, the cops or flies
The waitress asks me if we’re new to town
Between half-bites of thawed-out pumpkin pie
You stare into your mug of coffee grounds
I smile back, say no, just passing by
I worry when you cry into your hair
To hold you close, your skin’s so cold it hurts
I think you left your heart out there
In the woods, out there in the wet dirt
Ignore the sirens, darling, look at me
We’ll leave in the morning, drive to the sea–
Apprehend
And in the cold gray hours before the sun rose, you would tell me stories about being a kid on
the farm in Vermont. Your dad made you kill a chicken when you were eight, made you grip its
soft shaking body between skinned knees and cut its throat with a little splitting hatchet. On your
thirteenth birthday he dropped you off at the clinic in the city and told his brother not to come
home for thanksgiving that year. You got kicked out of your junior prom because you held a
boy’s own blade against his neck. Hold it steady with your knees, your dad said. Use your hips to
balance. Don’t take your left hand off its chest. Hit it cleanly, not too slow, not too fast, so you go
all the way through the first time. Don’t flinch at the blood. It can’t feel anything, so neither can
you. Throw sawdust on the mess when you’re done. No one’s gonna clean it up for you.
First Place Prose: Rachel Giles
Brine and Blood
Part 1
“Damn!” Rick exclaimed as he reeled in another empty fishing hook. All that remained
on the hook was the worm, which he ripped off and tossed in the water out of frustration. He
threw his pole down on the floor of his boat and sat down with a huff in the driver’s seat. He had
spent hours out here without anything to show for it, and even though Rick loved being in the
open ocean, he did not like coming back to shore emptyhanded. He decided he just needed to try
a new spot. He flicked a switch behind the steering wheel to lift up the anchor.
‘Maybe I should go over to that one spot the guy at the bait store recommended to me.
Joey caught a 10 foot marlin there last week!’ Rick thought while he waited for the anchor to
rise. ‘Although if that guy tells everyone who comes in his store about that spot, I ain’t gonna
catch something that will impress the boys back at the fishing club.’
Before he could continue his train of thought, Rick heard the anchor reach the surface.
Rick got up and walked over the side of the boat to check it out. The first thing Rick noticed was
the smell. Although he usually loved the smell of the ocean’s salty air, this smell had been
replaced with a scent that reminded Rick of a gutted fish. What awaited Rick was not a gutted
fish, but instead Rick’s eyes traced along a tentacle for many feet before ending at the head of a
giant squid. The giant squid was splashing around in the water, trying to free its tentacle from the
anchor it had been speared by. Rick was struck speechless for a moment until a menacing smile
spread across his face. “Well, well, well. Looks like I didn’t have to go to that spot after all,” he
said.
Rick knew that in order to profit from his discovery he couldn’t damage his prize. After
all, he couldn’t have an imperfect specimen attributed to his name. It was already damaged goods
because of the tentacle that the anchor had torn a hole in. No, in order to do this perfectly without
any injury to the giant squid, he would have to drag this creature on to dry land in order to
suffocate it. Rick jumped in the driver’s seat, more eager than ever to head back to shore.
“Hold on back there!” Rick shouted to the squid as he revved up the boat’s engines. “You
and I are going to do great things together.”
Part 2
“….and that is when I decided to write this book.” Rick said. He leaned back in his chair
with a grin. Dr. Casey started to speak up in order to add her own commentary, but Rick gestured
to the audience and said “Now, do any of you good folks have questions for me?” Dr. Casey
briefly glared at Rick, but he didn’t react.
Many hands raised throughout the crowd that had gathered to attend the book signing of
The Monstrous Struggle written by Rick Brooks himself. The event took place in the local
Science Museum where Rick had brought the creature after its death. Rick had watched as the
beast was carefully preserved by a small team of scientists and then placed on display in a
horizontal glass tank. That had been a few weeks ago. Even though the giant squid’s flesh had
turned a pale color from the preservation process, that didn’t deter the audience of a hundred
people from attending. Rick sat at a long table in front of the giant squid, and next to him sat the
museum’s lead marine biologist Dr. Casey. She wore a freshly dry-cleaned lab coat with her
museum ID lanyard hanging from her neck. She needed to present herself and the museum in a
professional manner. Rick, meanwhile, was wearing the exact same clothes he had been wearing
when he caught the beast. He dominated the conversation with the strength of his voice, unable
to restrain his desire to make use of his limelight. Dr. Casey had wanted to steer the conversation
towards the biology of the Architeuthis dux itself, but Rick only seemed interested in other
topics.
Rick pointed to a teenager in the audience. “What’s your question young man?”
The teen was excited to be called on. Eagerly, he said “Mr. Brooks, I want to be a great
angler just like you. Is it really true that this squid broke your pole?”
Rick smiled. “Sure is kiddo. After struggling with this beast for six hours and pulling it
up to just below the surface, my trusty fishing pole ended up like this…” He paused as he
reached under the table to grab something. With a flourish, he brought up a fishing pole that had
been cut in half by an angle grinder and held it aloft for the whole audience to see. The crowd
gasped in shock. “For a brief moment I thought that I would lose my quarry, so I decided the
only option left was to try and fight this creature on my own. I began to pull the squid towards
my boat with my bare hands!” By this point, Rick had set down the lower half of the fishing rod
in order to grip the top half like a club. Rick shouted “It was my raw strength against his, but in
the end I was victorious!” Rick pointed his broken fishing pole towards the crowd, and they
cheered wildly. “And if you read my book,” Rick shouted over the crowd’s cheers, “you too can
be just like me!”
Dr. Casey rolled her eyes. During Rick’s speech she had realized that this crowd only
wanted to hear from Rick, so before Rick could interrupt her again, she stood up to make an
announcement. “Alright everyone! I think that’s enough excitement for one day. Please make an
orderly line to have your book signed by Mr. Brooks.”
The crowd calmed down and started to organize themselves into a line. As Dr. Casey
picked up her belongings and got ready to leave the table, it was his turn to glare at her. Couldn’t
she see that he was the best thing to happen to this backwoods museum? Rick snapped out of his
thoughts when the first audience member stepped up to his table with her copy of his book. Rick
looked down at the book and got out his pen. “Who should I make this out to?” he asked.
“Um, Mr. Brooks, is the squid supposed to look like that?” The young woman asked as
she pointed to the display behind Rick.
A few people who were towards the front of the line gasped when they saw what the
young woman was pointing at. Dr. Casey stopped trying to leave the table and turned to see what
the fuss was about. Rick quickly spun around in his chair and saw that one of the squid’s
tentacles had sunk out of the rigid position it had been preserved in. Even though the scientists
had done their best to stitch it up, it was clearly the tentacle that Rick had damaged with his
anchor. It had moved from its original spot and the stitches had torn open.
Before he could react, Dr. Casey rushed to make another announcement. Rick could see
that her face had turned pale. “We apologize for the inconvenience everyone, but we promise this
is nothing to worry about. This specimen was the last of our display pieces to use a certain ratio
of chemicals, and tonight we will adjust that ratio in order to better preserve it for your viewing
pleasure.” The audience sighed in relief and Rick went back to signing books. Before she left,
Dr. Casey leaned down and whispered nervously into Rick’s ear. “Please keep the signing going.
We need all the positive publicity we can get.”
As Rick met more of his fans and signed more books, his thoughts stirred. Dr. Casey’s
nervous whispering and pale face caused him to worry. He imagined that Dr. Casey was afraid
her team couldn’t fix the problem. ‘They don’t really care about this creature the same way I do,’
he thought, ‘so I need to be there tonight when they fix him. I can’t let them ruin my legacy.’
Part 3
From his hiding place behind a display of prehistoric fish, Rick watched as Dr. Casey and
her team lowered the giant squid’s tank to the ground. Rick had seen the initial preservation
process, so when one staff member placed a medium sized black bag on the floor in front of the
tank, Rick became confused. ‘What the hell is that for?’ he thought to himself. ‘It doesn’t look
like the chemicals they used the first time.’
Every member of the museum staff that was present reached into the black bag and pulled
out a strange black stone. Rick could see that each stone began to glow as they were brought
closer to the squid. The staff stood in a circle around the tank and held their stones a few inches
above the squid’s corpse. Dr. Casey stood at the squid’s head and broke the silence with her
voice, softly chanting in a language Rick didn’t understand. His heart pounded, and Rick felt a
wave of unease pass over him as he realized he was witnessing some kind of occult ritual.
‘What the fuck is going on!’ Rick thought to himself as he ducked behind his hiding
place to avoid having to watch any further. ‘No wonder the museum needed some good
publicity.’
The chanting and glowing stopped, so Rick took another peek. When the staff put the
tank back in its original spot, Rick saw that the tentacle had mysteriously moved back to where it
was supposed to be. The staff silently put their stones back into the black bag one by one, until
Dr. Casey suddenly stopped the last staff member and took their stone from them.
“Hopefully this will secure the monster for tonight,” she said, “but in case it doesn’t…”
She gently placed the final stone in front the giant squid’s display. “There.”
The group walked away from the scene. As they left, Rick slowly walked towards the
stone and heard Dr. Casey order one of the staff around. “You. Have one of the janitors come and
pick this up in the morning before the visitors arrive. We can’t leave behind any trace….” Her
voice trailed off.
Rick bent down and grabbed the rock from its place on the floor. Even though it no
longer glowed, it was faintly warm from the energy of the ritual. Rick moved towards the
museum’s exit. His mind raced with possibilities.
‘I can’t believe my luck! First I stumble upon this beast, and now I discover a secret cult
working inside the Science Museum. With this rock as proof, I can get some guys with cameras
here and–’
His train of thought was interrupted by a slight noise behind him. He stopped in his tracks
and raced behind another museum exhibit of prehistoric fish. When he glanced back at the
squid’s tank, he realized the noise had been the soft thud of the giant squid’s body floating down
to the bottom of its tank. The smell of the ocean suddenly flooded his nostrils, and Rick looked
up to see the ghost of his prize drifting silently overhead. The ghostly squid was a pale blue and
floated through the air with ease. The rock Rick had stolen was the only thing keeping it at bay,
and now that it was free once more it needed to satiate its supernatural hunger. Rick watched as
the giant squid made its way over to the display he was hiding behind. With eyes that were the
size of Rick’s head, the giant squid carefully scanned the display until it spotted the fossil of a 4
foot long coelacanth fish. The giant squid suddenly passed through the glass of the display, the
coelacanth fossil, and almost through Rick if he hadn’t dodged out of the way. The coelacanth’s
spirt lept from it’s fossil to flee the squid’s tentacles. Rick extended his hands backwards in order
to catch himself as he fell on his back, but in the process he let go of the black stone. He was
forced to watch as it slid across the cold tile floor of the museum and right underneath a heavy
shelf full of prehistoric shells. The pale blue specter of the squid chased after the ghost of the
coelacanth above him, leaving the smell of brine behind them as they went. In the brief respite he
had after he lost sight of the ghosts, Rick lept up and continued running towards the exit. He
muttered to himself as he ran. “First a secret cult, and now undead sea creatures?! No one will
doubt my heroism now. All the proof I need is to bring someone here after midnight?” His
excitement started to get the better of him, because the volume of his voice began to rise. “Hell,
why stop there? I could even start making this a tourist attraction of my own! I’ll be a hero for
unmasking a secret cult and make tons of money!” His heart was still pounding, but it was no
longer out of fear. In a wild fury, he stopped in the main lobby of the museum and screamed “I’ll
finally be at the top where I belong!!!”
Rick couldn’t see it, but as he had gotten louder and louder the giant squid had finally
taken notice of him. Why would it bother with something as puny as a coelacanth if it had bigger
prey it is disposal? At the moment he stopped in the lobby and made his declaration, the last
thing Rick noticed was that familiar smell of brine and blood.
The morning sunlight peaked through the Science Museum’s windows by the time the
janitor arrived at the building’s front doors. When his supervisor had told him this morning to
pick up some kind of stone that one of the visitors left behind in front of the giant squid exhibit
yesterday, he shrugged it off. ‘People leave behind all kinds of stuff in public places,’ he thought as he unlocked the front door to begin his shift, ‘but that might be one of the oddest things I’ve
heard ab-’
Before he could finish his thought, he opened the museum door. He was greeted by the
next oddest thing that had been left behind in this museum. The pale body of man was sprawled
out on the floor, with a look of pure fear frozen on his face. His expression would remain that
way even after he was lowered into his coffin, because in the end Rick had gotten what he
wanted: to be preserved for all time.
Second Place Poetry: Maxon Oppedisano
Monkey Bars
Hanging on the monkey bars, my
fingers turning blue and stiff
Losing feeling in my arms and
asking teacher for a lift
Scary, right? – I’m barely thirty
inches off the chippy dirt
Steely rugburn makes me want to
scream until my forehead hurts
Forehead hurts and shoes are flapping,
dancing like a discotheque
Button down is buttoned up and
boa snaking ‘round my neck
Floor is Lava Floor is Lava
Floor is Lava, dark and wet
Hot as nails and thorny, Lava
gulping down the monkey set,
Gulping down the monkey set and
trading pennies for a dime
Just to get me in its jaws and
waste my sorry borrowed time
Spiders on my hands and prickly
centipedes are on their way
Do they bite? Oh, stupid question,
save it for a rainy day,
Rainy day, the inky clouds are
spilled from ballpoints, artificial
night, It’s rolling in and monkey
bars are suckers for conducting
light, And what’ll happen when the
rain is pulling at my palms,
Crack of thunder, 1, 2, 3, 4,
Crack! And there’s the lightning gone
Scary, right? – But who’s to blame me?
1, 2, Crack! Can someone save me!
Save me from the rain and fire!
Centipedes and poison spiders!
Rain’s upon me!
Wash away the
spiders, wash away the bugs,
Wash the stupid magma up
And Wrap me in a mother’s hug
Make the lava igneous,
let me drop on rocks that smell
Like Uncle Sal’s cigars.
Never, ever, ever let me
Back on the
monkey bars.
Second Place Prose: Sophia Myers
Iris: [faint laughter] Okay, okay, I’ll be serious this time, I promise. Welcome to our podcast
Abandoned Areas, where as the name indicates, we explore the abandoned places around our
small-ass town of Brighwood and talk about their history. Thank you for tuning in, dear listeners,
or if we’re being honest with ourselves, just Mrs. Halle. Love ya and love journalism class!
Julie: Can you re-record that intro one more time please? Professionalism is ten percent of our
grade.
Iris: It’s fine, I’ll just edit out the swearing later. Tonight in honor of Halloween, we’re doing a
special spoooooky episode and hopefully going somewhere that’s actually interesting.
Julie: Getting to the mill wasn’t interesting enough for you? We had to cross the river to get to it,
you almost drowned.
Iris: Yeah but there were no fun mysteries surrounding it! This place we’re exploring, dear
listener, is Monik Laboratories. A whole mile outside of Brighwood (which is farther than most
people here have ever gone), this abandoned facility is rumored to be the place where Dr. Lana
Williams took her last breath.
Julie: The police never found a body though.
Iris: True. Maybe she’s still alive. Or maybe the police murdered her and covered it up. Maybe
her killer is still out there…. And maybe it’s ME! AAAAAGH! [muffled sound of a phone
falling]
Julie: [high-pitched scream, then laughter] No tickling, no tickling! We have a podcast to record,
weirdo!
Iris: You love me.
Julie: I love getting assignments in on time. Can I record, since you’re clearly distracted?
Iris: [sigh] fine. Just try and make it dramatic, I want our listeners to be engaged.
Julie: Since our host has neglected to mention our surroundings, it’s getting dark and we’re
walking through a path in the woods that’s supposed to lead to this facility. Clearly no one has
maintained it in a long time because it’s overgrown and I keep getting burrs stuck in my pants.
Iris: You’re lucky you’re wearing pants, I keep having to pick them out of my legs. It hurts like a
bitch.
Julie: No swearing! And that’s what you get for dressing like Harley Quinn while we’re walking
through a forest at night. How are you even standing with those heels?
Iris: I’m a girlboss, and obviously the spirit of Harley Quinn has acknowledged that and chosen
me as her vessel. You didn’t even dress up.
Julie: Isn’t the spirit of a white woman inhabiting you, a Japanese woman problematic in a
Scarlett Johannson kind of way? And I’m a junior, I’m too old to dress up.
Iris: Oh who gives a shit, where’s your Halloween spirit?
Julie: That’s not– nevermind. For those that are somehow still listening, we’ve come to the end
of the path, which is made evident by the fact that there’s a chain link fence that seems to be in a
perimeter around the facility. It’s about twice as tall as me and the top of it is lined with barbed
wire. What was your plan here, Iris? Are we supposed to magically walk through the fence?
Because we certainly can’t climb it.
Iris: My sweet, sweet Julie, you have so little faith in me! I always come with a plan. [sounds of
a backpack being unzipped].
Julie: Iris! I thought your parents took all of your sharp objects away, where did you get bolt
cutters?
Iris: [laughing] It’s fine, I scored these babies for free.
Julie: How? This is a small town Iris, everyone knows what happened. No one would have
willingly given you those if they had any concern for your safety.
Iris: [silence]
Julie: Stop the podcast.
Iris: What? We just got here.
Julie: Stop the podcast, Iris.
I hit pause on my phone and looked over at Julie. “What is it?” She looked back at me,
her arms folded and her blue eyes narrowed.
“Are you stealing again?” I forced out a laugh.
“As if. My parents have been on my ass lately, it’s not like I’ve had the time.” Even as I
said it I knew how lame the excuse sounded.
“That’s not an answer.” Even while glaring at me she looked beautiful. For someone that
acted so hard, everything about her was soft. Her eyes, her strawberry blond hair that framed her
round face, and the gentle curves of her body. I wouldn’t have ever found her intimidating if she
wasn’t taller than me by about six inches.
“I… yeah. Just these though. Just so that we could make it through the fence.” She threw
up her hands in frustration.
“Why?” She looked angry, but there was something surprisingly brittle behind her eyes.
“You told me you were done making impulsive decisions. You promised.”
“I thought I was.” My voice cracked and I saw her expression soften to something like…
probably just pity.
“Can you take off your jacket?” She asked gently.
“Just because I stole something doesn’t mean I–”
“I know. But I need to make sure.” She walked over to me and gently slid my jacket off
my shoulders and down my arms, exposing my wrists. They were covered in a pattern of scars,
some that had nearly faded back into the beige of my skin, but most a rough, scabbed-over red
from my relapse about a week ago. I had only just taken the bandages off the other day.
“As if I could do anything with bolt cutters anyways.” I laughed weakly.
“I never knew how to ask you this, but why did you relapse?” I sighed and sat down with
my back against the fence. She sat down next to me and took my hand in hers as if she could
sense how nervous I was.
“I found my mom.” Her eyes widened.
“Your bio mom? You’ve been trying to contact her for years.”
“Yeah. She’s uh… well there was a reason she never wrote back. Apparently she had
some kind of manic episode and killed herself. When I found out, I… I kind of spiraled.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I freaked out. My brain just kept telling me, “You’re going to be like her.”
I’m already a reckless, shitty person, and I really don’t know why sometimes. It’s like I need to
do something stupid to feel like I’m in control of my life and I can’t stop until I’m done. And
then I look around and see all the people I’ve hurt, or disappointed…” Tears started to run down
my cheeks. “…and I wonder if they would be better off without me. And… I wonder if that’s
what she thought too. When I came back from the hospital, I thought that I was doing better, but
lately I haven’t been able to sleep, or eat. I can’t stop thinking that maybe she was right.” As
soon as I finished speaking, I felt the emotional and physical exhaustion I had been pushing off
hit me all at once, and I started to cry in huge, heaving sobs. I felt the soft wool of Julie’s sweater
against my shoulders as she wrapped her arms around me. She smelled like strawberries. I could
have sat there forever and just let her hold me, but after a while I felt a weird prickling sensation
in my legs. An itch. I pushed Julie’s arm aside.
“What’s wrong?” She asked.
“Nothing, my legs are just really itchy for some reason.”
“Do you think there’s poison ivy in the woods?” She leaned over to look and I heard a
sharp intake of breath.
“What?” I leaned over as well and saw that my legs below the knee were covered in
dozens of rough, dark scabs and what looked like dried blood. “What the fuck?”
Julie was staring at them. “That doesn’t look like a rash. Maybe it’s those burrs that we
were walking through?”
“Yeah, but normally they don’t cause this much fucking damage.” My legs were itching
badly now and I reached down to scratch them, but just as I poked one Julie grabbed my hand.
“No scratching!”
“What the fuck?”
“Sorry, I just know how you are with scabs– you never let them heal, you just keep
scratching at them.”
“No, I swear I just felt it move.”
“What?”
“Seriously, it’s like it shifted underneath my fingers. It feels like there’s something
crawling on the inside of my skin.”
“Let me feel.” She gingerly poked one of them, then placed her whole hand on my leg. “I
don’t feel anything. You’re really warm, though. Maybe you’re having some kind of allergic
reaction?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never felt something like this before.”
“We should probably get you to a doctor.” Julie stood up and offered her hand to me. I
took it and tried to pull myself up, but as I did a wave of dizziness washed over me and I fell
back on my ass.
“Ow.” My heart was pounding ridiculously fast inside my chest, as if I just ran a
marathon instead of trying to stand up. The itching had crawled up to my stomach now.
“Iris, are you okay?” I clasped my hands together, trying to stop myself from tearing at
the skin.
“I’m fine, I’m just dizzy. And hot. And really fucking itchy.” The itching was starting to
get painful and I couldn’t stop myself. I started scratching furiously at my legs, but as my nails
made contact with my skin it started to slough off in wet, bloody streaks of flesh. I stared at
them, my mind trying to wrap itself around what was happening. Amidst the now open wounds
my nails had ripped into, there were these black… things. They looked like the burrs that we had
walked through, but their spikes looked more like legs and they were moving. I screamed and
Julie quickly knelt down in front of me.
“What’s happening, what’s wrong?”
“What do you mean what’s happening? Look at my legs, the burrs are literally eating
through my skin!” The pain was making me want to rip through my skin again and I could see
some of them burrowing through my muscle tissue. I could feel the others crawling up through
my chest and into my arms.
“What’s eating through your skin?” Julie was looking at me with a mingled expression of
concern and fear. “Iris, it’s just scabs.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” I could feel some of them crawling underneath the old cut
on my left wrist and I tore the skin open, trying to prevent them from getting to my hand. Julie
gasped and grabbed both of my wrists, and I cried out in pain as her hand gripped my corroded
skin.
“I don’t know if you’re having some kind of reaction or mental breakdown but you can’t
do this!” Her voice was tight with panic.
“I’m not having a breakdown, this is fucking real!” They were starting to reach my hand
and I fought to break her grip, but she held tight.
“Iris, I need you to look at me.” The panic in her voice was gone, replaced by an intensity
that I hadn’t heard before. “Look at me and tell me what’s happening.” I tried to wrench my eyes
away from my wrist when I saw it. One of the creatures burst through my skin with a squelch
and started crawling towards her hand.
“Let me go, it’s going to crawl inside you too!”
“Iris, listen to me. There’s nothing there–” Before it could crawl up her wrist I threw my
full bodyweight to the side. Her grip on my wrists broke and I fell to the right. I heard a dull
thunk as I felt my skull hit something hard, and then everything went black.
When I awoke my head was throbbing and I could hear a faint beeping. I was lying down, staring
up at a ceiling lit by fluorescent lights. I shifted to the side and felt the familiar crinkle of paper
underneath my body. Julie was sitting across from the hospital bed, her head in her hands. Next
to her were my parents, both asleep.
“What happened?” My voice came out hoarser than I expected. Julie looked up and her
face broke out into a smile.
“You’re awake! I don’t know how much you remember, but the doctors said that you
probably had some sort of breakdown from lack of sleep or stress. You tried to fight me in the
woods and threw your head against a rock.” I touched my head gingerly and felt that there were
soft bandages wrapped around it.
“So it wasn’t real?”
“No. You were screaming about things inside your skin, but the doctors found nothing.
They said that it was probably a hallucination induced by lack of sleep, or stress.” Julie looked
carefully at my face. “You’re not still seeing them, are you?”
I could feel them tickling the inside of my body, crawling around in my skull, burrowing
into my muscles.
“No.”
Third Place Poetry: Karie Hawkins
veil
listen to the crisp autumn leaves breaking
beneath your boot; you go further into
the forest’s gloom, hidden eyes following
your every move; i think the ghosts heard you
shadowy figures waltzing in your wake
each time you turn around they disappear
you cannot distinguish what is real or fake
struggling to remember those you hold dear
shouldn’t have strayed from the path; now realize
you tread a fine line between life and death
and it seems that the spirits have all eyes
on you; waiting until your final breath
i truly hope that you are not upset
know it’s bittersweet, but you will forget
Third Place Prose: Jocelyn Paredes
“85”
Fowler’s 85: a glassy white ranch whose walls glistened at night, reflecting and bouncing off of the
moonlight the way water does from the sun. From where Gracey Harrington stood, the house looked to be
made of a pristine porcelain; standing tall and stoic with its pillars and mounds of stairs, Gracey felt as
small and disheveled as a torn cotton ball in its presence. The pass she held in her hand was no bigger
than a business card, so she clung to it and it stuck to her skin like double-sided tape: the poor thing
having been smothered by her sweat. Gracey obtained the membership card from her friend, Elle, who
had obtained it from her Uncle; admission into 85 was impossible without it.
Elle had given her the pass like it was a Christmas card–without any shame about its contents or
implied meaning. It was a Friday night–the flesh of heartbreak laid exposed, a saturated red whose juices
fell insaseously like tears–a detrimental fate bewitched the rugged, white carpet in Gracey’s apartment.
“You’ll hate me for even suggesting this,” she said, digging into her purse. “My uncle gave me an
extra pass to 85.” Elle found her wallet, took it out and harshly explored its crevices with stiff fingers.
Pulling out the card, she continued, “Take this, put on a nice dress, and–if you want–go pay them a visit. I
promise you’ll forget about Sam as soon as you walk in.” Elle had these vocal habits that, when one was
going through what Gracey was, made everything seem delightfully arbitrary. She’d speak in an
exaggerated manner expanding her vowels as if that was allowed and then, she’d cut her words too short
all of a sudden, but only when she was excited could one really notice it. There was a way, too, in which
she said Samuel’s name that deeply saddened Gracey; the familiarity in her tone–a disintegrating form of
subconscious affection–it was difficult for her to hear.
Where she’d have normally rejected the idea completely in the past, the lack of companionship in
Gracey’s life had begun to create a black hole whose singularity placed itself so securely in the center of
her chest that if she hadn’t done something soon, it would have swallowed her whole. Suddenly, the idea
didn’t sound so ridiculous.
“They’re not going to force me to have sex or anything, right?”
“What? No!”
“Elle, I’m serious.”
“I mean, I’m sure it happens. They are sex workers after all, sort of.” Elle said, blushing. Gracey
noticed how Elle–almost instinctively–squeezed on the loose skin of her forearm; she hadn’t known it
then, but it was a memorial. “That kind of depends, I guess. On the vamp, I mean!” She pulled at the skin
once more, nearly scratched at it like she was trying to soothe the veins underneath. “But they can make
you feel good, in a different way. It’s hard to explain, you’ll just have to go try it for yourself.” Skeptical
and yet equally keen, Gracey slid the card into her back pocket.
“Thanks,” said Gracey snidely.
“Trust me, one hit of that sweet venom and you’ll come out of there a changed woman. It might
as well be like having sex for the first time all over again. And if you like it enough, maybe we can go
together sometime!” Gracey smiled at her friend; she always did find Elle’s means of expressing
excitement endearing: she’d smile the way a child does when they take a first bite of their birthday cake;
her eyes would curve like an opened umbrella and her eyebrows arched up like hockey sticks, as if trying
to high-five her heart-shaped hairline.
Everyone said werewolves, as opposed to the police, would raid the ranch on Arthur Street during
nights the sky was speckled with glazed stars and a full moon the size of a thumbtack to turn the
clientele–the ones seeking out the high of the venom, the intoxication that kept everyone coming back. It
was an ideal clientele, vulnerable people with needs–a dependency on Fowler’s workers. Their boss was
Joe Fowler. He was hard of hearing and often yelled with viscosity and hoarseness. Couldn’t be caught
dead or alive without a toothpick sticking out of his mouth like a flag pole, he was said to have been a
millionaire and allegedly, he took only a small cut of his workers’ income and in return, they were
promised proper feedings and housing.
Following a recent departure from her lover of three years, Gracey found herself standing in front
of 85: part of her ashamed for having entertained the thought of such a vile–according to her–resource of
external pleasure, the other, well, simply sick of limping around with a sorrow that pricked at her lower
abdomen like a kidney stone. But the young woman was afraid–of many things then, certainly of the
possibility of a raid, but being turned mainly.
“Why would someone go to Fowler’s? To get themselves turned into a monster?” Gracey had said
once to Elle. It wasn’t meant maliciously–though looking back, Gracey could certainly have seen it that
way–she had thought about the house, it had turned out, and she was truly interested to understand the
appeal. “Why go to seek service from those things?”
“Why do people go to bars? Or clubbing? People do weird things when they have no where else
to go to avoid their feelings. And, they’re not monsters. They’re doing their best.” said Elle, not paying
much mind to Gracey. They had had this conversation before, too many times for Elle’s liking.
“Well, they’re certainly not human. You’ll never catch me there.”
To which, Elle waved her friend off, hoping to move on.
While the winds danced with the fleece material of her jacket, Gracey watched the stairs intently
like they were going to move; she could see the lights that illuminated the rooms in the house–it seemed
to have seeped through, like a soul being extracted. The days since Samuel’s leave were strange; some
came and went so fast, she’d blink them away; but on days like this one, the curse of grief Gracey
experienced was too much to bear for everywhere she looked she saw her previous lover: in leftover
cooking oil, the plastic straw she drank water from, even after she wiped the windows of her apartment
clean with Windex. All she sought was a remedy, to what means was now irrelevant.
There was no issue getting inside the ranch; the bouncer–if you could call him that–was a
brooding, fat man who stood in front of the big, golden door that was embellished with many different
kinds of jewels that Gracey couldn’t identify. The fat man was checking, ensuring, that the club passes
were legit. He asked for Gracey’s pass–which she presented–and then, she was let in.
“Enjoy your stay,” he said to Gracey, hostlering up the belt under his protruding stomach. He did
a poor job trying to sound hospitable, if he was trying to, the way he spoke was passive aggressive and if
anything, hostile. Upon opening the doors, it smelled like lavender and cat feces in the ranch; there was
also a pungent, curtailing smell of iron. People sat lined up with their heads leaned against the walls or
buried into throw pillows getting “serviced” in the living room which really was just a long open space
with velvet indigo couches and lined with white buckets. Gracey didn’t understand why the buckets were
needed, but she worked to promptly ignore them and continued to walk the grounds of the ranch.
It was easy to tell the vampires from humans; other than the obvious role they were partaking
in–the biting–they all wore a uniform consisting of a white dress shirt, tailored black bottoms, and a
chunky belt with a silver buckle. There was so much blood inhabiting skin, skin inhabiting blood, Gracey
couldn’t imagine that no human ever got turned at a place like this. Though she was promised by Elle
she’d leave the brothel more human than ever, she was terribly afraid. She stood there, unsure of where to
go or what to do.
“Hello,” said a woman from behind Gracey. She turned around to see a middle aged woman
dressed elegantly in a black cocktail gown. The woman, who Gracey never learned the name of, wore
matted makeup—a bit exaggerated in some places like in the hollows of her cheeks and the curls of her
lips. She was tall, like a cosplayer of the pillars that first greeted Gracey. “You look like a first-timer, do
you have a preference?” She spoke with harsh jabs, like she was trying to force-feed someone her words.
“A what?”
“A preference?” She said, this time slower. Gracey stared at her doe-eyed, her mouth hanging
slightly open–the humid air came in and out through the small gap, cyclically like a revolving door.
“Just..that he’s gentle?” The woman grew closer to Gracey; she felt her hot, smoky breath tickling
the bridge of her nose. She ran her long fingers through the strands of Gracey’s hair. Gracey subverted
into herself, feeling uneasy at her touch.
“Well then,” she said, stepping away. “I might just have the perfect one for you. It’s a private
session. In such a case, Joe requests tips be paid up front.”
Gracey watched the purse attached to her hip as if it were too trying to seduce her; she felt
discombobulated in the ranch and even standing before this vampire–Gracey noted the red ring orbiting
her black-painted mouth–she felt compelled, out of her body. A desire not warranted away from Gracey.
But puzzling, for something unexplainable to her made her desire to be desired. Even for something as
morbid and transactional as the blood that filled her body. There was no escape now and realizing
this–and in secret, condoning it–Gracey pulled out a fifty dollar bill from her purse and gave it to the
woman.
“This way please…”
The hallways of the ranch, decorated with dried flowers and paintings of ponds, in addition to the
rays of the multicolored lights that came from hidden sources carried with itself a tender mass that, if
needed, helped one stay upright and enriched in pursuit. Walking through them felt like coming home
from a vacation. Gracey couldn’t deny her fear, but following her hostess through these halls, jumping
from painting to painting like a game of hopscotch, gave her a euphoric reassurance or, from perhaps an
outsider’s perspective, malevolent deception. But when the woman began to knock on the enclosed door
the pair had stopped in front of, Gracey pushed away from the succulent warmth.
“Nikolas! Your next client is here!”
Then, after several minutes of audible shuffling and minute growling, a young girl emerged from
the room; she couldn’t have been more than sixteen-years-old. The bite marks on her decolletage seized
like a fresh branding from an iron. Her blood pooled in those places and because of the light, her skin
looked mostly white and her blood mostly purple. Like the woman–her hostess–the girl had a red ring
around her mouth and to this, Gracey felt confused, beyond the fact that she was so young and in a
brothel. She stood precariously while the girl began to stumble down the corridors of the ranch, slumped
over but never falling, Gracey–lost in thought–hadn’t noticed her hostess walk into the room briefly
before running out to help the girl on her way out.
Gracey watched the door, left ajar by the woman, and briefly thought about leaving. She might
have left if she hadn’t peaked through the ghastly crack that currently, separated her from her sorrows.
Her throat tightened as though the room had a hold on it; it was coaxing her, pulling her through by the
tendons of her heart. She entered the room swiftly, desiring to cry but equally, to soothe her curiosity.
There sat the vampire, Nikolas. So different from Samuel, both in physique and fervor. Though he
dawned no overtly-expressive reaction to Gracey’s entrance, there was an exhaustion in his blood-shot
eyes; he watched her, with hanging eyelids and a closed mouth, an expression so solemn–he looked
unapologetically unamused. Surprisingly, he looked immensely…human.
“Welcome,” he said to her, Gracey had assumed he’d have been less inclined to offer hospitality
for her interruption; he turned his back to her and said to the wall mostly, “First time?” When Gracey
didn’t answer, he turned around to face her. “Come, have a seat.” He spoke softly, dragging out his words
before cutting them off staccato. This time he watched her until she moved.
Gracey remained silent and in her own space, thinking about her life. Though, she had stepped
out beyond her sorrows, there was something wilting inside of her that she felt would die the instance she
touched Nikolas or he, her. The pull was alluring, so many things about it. The longer she stood, the more
she felt her blood sizzle within her skin–almost begging for an escape. Slowly, Gracey walked over to
Nikolas, whose gaze followed her, and straddled him. She caged his face with her hands, enjoying the
prickle from the stubble on his face. His skin warmed her hands and she felt tempted to pinch his
cheeks–just to see what he’d do. She decided against it. The look on his face was the antithesis of
resistance and if anything, there was a part of him that might have even felt her pain–even if he couldn’t
understand it; this made it easier to forget that she was just another client. Suddenly, Gracey didn’t want
to tarnish the linkage even if imaginary.
“They said your name was Gracey.” She nodded, combing her fingers through Nikolas’ hair. His
hands coated Gracey’s when they returned to his face, “So, what would you like from me, Gracey?”
Touching each other in this way felt like an imitation of intimacy, but Gracey longed to feel the sincerity
of touch–even under false pretenses.
“Whatever you want.” Nikolas said nothing, though he stared at her, waiting. When she offered a
spot just above her heart, Nikolas struck a vein–the venom from his teeth releasing into her body like a
vaccine. Gracey involuntarily stiffened, nearly losing her balance in the process, but Nikolas held her
upright–having dealt with it before–and continued to drink. She leaned over, her hands now clutching his
boney shoulders. After some time, Gracey felt relaxed, agile even. A delicious sensation: with this small
rupture, she entered a euphoric stasis. Despite what she was losing, she dared claim the pleasure enticed
by its creator, the one in her arms. Tears had paid her a visit, though as Gracey sat with Nikolas, her hands
gingerly twirling the strands that allowed her on his head, her human blood seeping out of her, a gentle
rocking and poised hand on her back, she smiled.
Now, I see, she thought.