Fish Who Answer the Telephone

In 1937 Yury Petrovich Frolov conducted a scientific experiment to see if fish could hear. He used a ringing telephone. Of course, the experiment concluded that fish can hear. He recorded his findings and published a book. The title: Fish Who Answer the Telephone. I haven't yet read the book, so I can't officially review it. What I can do is speculate that a book with this title could be much more interesting with a different subject matter, so I present to you a short excerpt of Fish Who Answer the Telephone: A Fiction Novel.

"I was asleep when the phone began ringing. The day had been long, so I hesitated getting out of bed. It stopped after the third ring. Relieved, I rolled over to finish the night's sleep. That's when I heard talking in the living room. It was nothing more than a soft murmur but I was the only person in the house. I got out of bed and slowly creeped down the hallway toward the voice. It sounded like a one sided conversation, but I couldn't make out exact words. At the doorway to the living room I poked my head in, but it was too dark to see. I flipped on the light. My beta fish looked at me, held out the phone, and said, 'Hey Jon, it's for you.'"

Do any of you guys have thoughts or a different story? Let me know in the comments how you think this book should go.

Debauchery at Rockefeller Plaza by B. V. Boyer

Nicholas shivered with rage as he gazed upon the antique figurines through the display window. Imbeciles! The image humans had dreamed up for him was truly disgusting.  A fat man in a red suit -puffy cheeks and white beard. Absurd! He'd had enough of this! Tonight they would see his real charm.  Tonight  he would ruin all their ideals, all their happy faces.

Half the city stood at Rockefeller Plaza waiting for the big Christmas tree reveal. Nicholas heaved himself off the store facade and began making his way through the crowd.

Once at the stage, he began preparing for the reveal. He pulled out the megaphone to ensure he was heard by all. The acoustics would be wonderful here.

Just as the lights came up, he jumped in front of the tree.  Screams of shock echoed through the crowd, as Nicholas rose to his full height. Nicholas stood naked, the veins stood out from his muscles pulsing green against snow white skin. "Today, you will all know the truth of your Santa Claus!" He shouted as four additional penises and arms sprouted through his left flank. He began jerking off as people in the front trampled each other trying to escape. It was no use. The explosion of acidic green jiz began spurting hundreds of feet into the air, raining down on the crowd. Screams of agony filled the night. As a final touch, Nicholas bellowed, "and to all, a good night!"

Christmas Layaway Bluetooth Blues - Russell Holbrook

Jacob went to K-Mart to buy an antique daydream. Because it was so expensive, it had been on layaway for a century. His job sweeping bones out of the ballroom didn’t pay very well. He’d been saving for so long. Even now he knew he was two dollars short. He planned to use his charm on the cashier, hoping that she would let it slide, or let him perform some kind of immoral and indecent act to cover the rest. Anything, anything… he would do whatever she asked. Jacob was sure this would work out for him. It had to, it was Christmas.

And then, it was his turn and there she was, smiling. He paid what money he had and explained, telling his story in all its utterly sad, reprehensible, pathetic glory. And she smiled and said no. She was sorry but there was nothing that she could do. Jacob’s eyes fell to the floor, his hands went into his pockets, and then hundreds of tiny Chinese throwing stars were pelting the cashier and all the customers and screams and blood filled the layaway department and the manager shuffled out of the back and sighed. I knew this would happen one day, he said as a throwing star stabbed him in the eye.  

Bradley Smith - Carolers

Justin heard from the kitchen. Damn Carolers, he thought. Come by every year. Nothing but annoying noise.

He'd prepared this time. 

For the last month he’d bought cartons of eggnog, let them spoil, until they smelled like fungus-ridden toe-cheese; a true antique by now. He poured them into a large bucket, ready to be thrown on the unsuspecting visitors.

He opened the door just as "Silent Night" began and threw the putrid nog in their faces. 

They didn't respond. 

The smiles remained, even as the white dripped off their chins. All eyes were on Justin, unblinking and full of joy.

A sound that resembled the screech of brakes came from each of the Carolers’ mouths, starting very low, increasing in volume by the nanosecond. Their faces split down the middle, as if the were opened from inside by some invisible zipper. Underneath was darkness, nothing but. A cold breeze, like the air that escapes a freezer, came, making the already frigid air that much colder. Ballroom music oozed from the pit.

Justin couldn't look away. He felt compelled to look into the empty faces; it was like bait. As if in a daydream, he walked closer, peering in, until he was crawling through, just as a child will climb into a toybox to get to the best toy at the bottom, all the way to his burial.

Then he was gone.

The faces all zipped back up into their facade and they glided away, onto the next house of debauchery.

Christmas with Charles - Justin Burnett (Stories by the Fireplace)

When he was younger, every year after the wee hours of his annual Christmas Eve debauchery, your great grandad Charles would take us kids out to the fountain. We'd follow him, with his daydream gaze and ballroom stagger testifying to an inhuman indulgence of eggnog and vicodin, to the garden out back. Despite his inherent charm and intoxicated holiday spirit, we always noticed an aura of abstract malice in his bloodshot eyes and messy grin. 

I still have nightmares about Christmas and the facade of Charles’ sloppy face, barely concealing a savage cruelty somewhere in an engorged, black abyss. 

All of us kids would trudge to the fountain in the center of the garden with a sickening dread. It was always in the early morning, we were always exhausted, but Charles would bait us with his usual spiel. “We have to punish the naughty or Santa won't come.” 

A burlap feed sack was always propped up against the antique stone of the fountain. Charles would open a stained leather satchel and pass around long sharpened knives. “Inside this bag” he would mutter, “is the devil. The very devil who killed Jesus Christ himself.” 

And in a sudden frenzy, Charles would brandish the bullwhip.

The leather would sing against our backs until we sunk the knives into the sack. 

Every Christmas we walked back to the house, bruised, cut and weeping. The fountain would run crimson at our flank, and Charles would disappear into the underbrush to prepare the burial. 

On Christmas morning, we would listen to the adults share the sad news of another missing child. 

Charles was always distraught. 

Stories by the Fireplace

Welcome to Box of Bizarro's first annual Stories by the Fireplace. This year, I invite the bizarro family to gather around the hearth, find a cozy spot, grab their mugs of whichever warm beverage they choose, and tell a nice, weird story. Nothing major, just a 250 word or less story that includes at least 4 of the 12 words listed at the bottom of this post. The stories will be posted on the Box of Bizarro website and readers will vote for the winner. The story will be posted without edits within 24 hours of submission, so the sooner you get it in the more time you will have to promote your story and earn votes. The winner will receive a $15 Amazon gift card and two gifts. Please send all stories to submissions@boxofbizarro.com with the subject line "fireplace." If there are any questions about the rules or any other issue, you are welcome to send an email.

• Each Facebook like and positive comment on a post directly linking to the story will be counted as 1 vote. 
• Positive comments on each original story posted on the website will count as 1.5 votes. 
• Sharing a link on Facebook will count as 2 votes for the shared story.
• Author's may vote on their own stories and up two others.

Each person that votes on a story will be placed in a drawing to win a $7 Amazon gift card and one gift. 

• Each individual like and comment on the Facebook post linking to a specific story will enter the voter's name one time. 
• Each vote by comment on the website and each story link shared on Facebook will be entered twice. 
• Voters can vote on a maximum of three stories, but can vote for those three stories on the website and anywhere on Facebook that their links appear. 

The winners will be announced Dec. 26. 

Choose at least 4 of the following words:

1. abstract
2. bait
3. egocentric
4. debauchery
5. charm
6. flank
7. antique
8. ballroom
9. daydream
10. acoustic
11. burial
12. facade

You may use these words in any order you wish. In the spirit of pushing your creativity, for each word you choose over the 4 required, you will receive 0.5 votes.

Book Review - Planet Mermaid by Leza Cantoral

Planet Mermaid is short and fast-paced. It was over before I could blink and never boring. The book uses a basic fairytale formula similar to Disney films as an initial basis for something much darker and more unique. It begins with Lilia the mermaid who is dissatisfied with her mundane life in an underwater paradise. Lilia's sisters are content with their lives that pretty much consist of socializing, mating, and pawning their babies off on her. Lilia, however, dreams of traveling to the mysterious surface above, meeting the land walkers, maybe even hooking up with one. A cliche setup for sure, but thats the point. The familiarity works as an instantly accessible introduction and as a perfect dichotomy to what follows, drawing out the following events, giving them more oomph than if the story had come out guns blazing. I’m not just talking about the violent and sexual content. This isn’t an adult fairytale. Whether or not that's what it's trying to be, I’m not sure, but I feel calling it that would be doing it a disservice.

After its brief intro segment that lasts only a few pages, the story itself transitions along with the protagonist. Lilia makes her way to the surface and emerges from her fairytale cliche. She enters a new world that is much harder to define, it's a little sci-fi, a little horror, and extremely unpredictable. At this point, in complete contrast to what it initially had you believe was in store, the element of surprise becomes it’s greatest asset, and talking about any specific moment, even the smaller ones, would be a massive spoiler. It hits you with a barrage of super cool imagery, grotesque cruelty, and thought provoking plot. The final scene in particular is a complete surprise, almost seeming out of left field, but is actually a perfect way to wrap things up, bringing the ideas from the beginning back around with a twist and giving meaning to everything that happened in between.

Planet Mermaid can be effortlessly read in one sitting and will stick with you long after its short runtime. It establishes a surprising amount about its characters and world, and while closing the loop on everything major pertaining to the specific story it’s telling, it leaves you (Much like Lilia) wanting to know more about it’s universe.

GET IT HERE: http://dynatox.storenvy.com/collections/240632-all-products/products/14887254-planet-mermaid-by-leza-cantoral

5 Minute Madness - Kids by William Box

Kids

The red kid ran into the house. He was followed by a blue kid and a green kid. No one understood their words, so they spoke in trapezoids instead. All of the prisms in the house looked at one another. They knew it had been a very long time since anyone had spoken in shapes. The language, they thought, had been lost in time, space, the couch, and everywhere else that things could get lost. Other than the prisms, no one knew the language, so the prismatic triad tried something else. They spoke English. They themselves, however, couldn't understand because none of them knew the language. 

"Would you pickles fellow the trite binding things!" the children demanded. 

The humans in the room didn't understand the words. Humans no longer spoke English. 

They only spoke money and coffee. They never even looked up as they exchanged green rectangles, silver circles, and cylinders of brown, steaming liquid. 

The adults continued to pay for the attention of the TV's and the computers. They needed something to look into their eyes. It wasn't their fault. They didn't know the children would do it for free.

Book Review - Dead Bitch Army by Andre Duza

Let me start by saying that I really like the concept. I have read authors that are hit or miss. I have read books that are hit or miss. But I have never read chapters that are hit or miss...until I read Dead Bitch Army. There are parts that are so stimulating that I could not peel my eyes away, yet there were parts that were so dry that they repelled my eyes like a magnetic field of blah. The "interesting" thing is that the intriguing bits aren't always the same type of scene. At one point there is an interesting fight scene, at another point there is a suspenseful sit-and-wait scene, there is even an instance of a long conversation in a restaurant about a topic that I disagree should be in the book entirely; yet all of these were engaging scenes. Then, there were scenes that should have held my attention. The content was there, but the heart was not. It seemed as if he had a great story that wasn't quite long enough, so he wrote the same story again, this time dry. Then he shuffled the two together. Andre Duza can be (and possibly is) a great writer. I regret that this is the first of his books that I read, but I will definitely read more Duza. I wouldn't feel comfortable with this rating without giving him another try.

Another reason that I had to rate this book lower than I normally would is the editing. Their are misspellings, misuse of words, and even incomplete sentences. These are issues that aren't necessarily the author's fault. They are in the book nonetheless, and this is a book review, not an author review. I have been informed since originally reviewing this book that there are multiple versions; one more edited than the other. I evidently ended up with the original, less edited version, so you may end up with a better copy than I did. In all, the book itself was somewhat entertaining, but somewhat difficult to get through with the editorial mistakes.

2.5/5

"The Regular" a Flash Fiction by D.M. Anderson

A man walks into a bar.

He has a face like a Mr. Potato Head if you were to somehow shove a brick up its ass and make it really angry looking all the time.

Sauntering up to the bartender, he slams a canned-ham fist full of dollars down and mumbles something incoherently low in a voice like broken glass.

The barkeep nods and takes the wadded lump of cash gingerly to the register.

"Drinks on the house!" Mr. Potato Head bellows, to the astonished delight of the surrounding patrons.

The room quickly empties in an avalanche of drunken flailing limbs, all scrambling for the stairs leading to the roof.

"Works every time." Says Mr. Potato Head, sliding into his favorite booth.

Bobby Ratskin is the Most by Bob Freville

Bobby Ratskin had thirty siblings, everyone of them named Bobby Ratskin and all of them with identical features. Our Bobby Ratskin was the runt of the litter, the other Bobby Ratskins punted Bobby Ratskin around like a soccer ball and called him blue balls...even though soccer balls were rarely blue in color. But Bobby Ratskin wasn't a soccer ball or a pair of blue balls, he had an acid-washed denim jacket with a screen print of Gordon Lightfoot on the back and Bobby Ratskin had a blond rat's tail and spiky hair and wispy blond peach fuzz above his upper lip and he could finger blast your girlfriend well and good.

He knew this because, even though he'd never fingered a girl before, he'd practiced with the discipline of a dojo master and the dexterity of a concert pianist.

Bobby Ratskin's talent may have lied within his hands—he was an expert klepto who could get away with tucking a big screen Plasma TV under his shirt—but his passion, nay, his obsession was with feet. He worshiped toes, he was mad about heels and he gesticulated at the altar of a high arch. The very variety of shapes and sizes, of itty bitty cherry toes, rounded at their tips, and long bony skeleton toes and crooked gargoyle pretzel toes, gave him a spell.

Bobby was felled by feet, they were, to put it metaphorically, his very Achille's heel. When Taylor Isis moved to town he lost his shit. Taylor was the sauciest Hispanic porn star in the biz and the queen of “floor porn” fetish entertainment. She had the biggest feet Bobby Ratskin had ever seen on a girl and they were sexy as sin.

Throughout his sophomore year, Bobby Ratskin had regularly foregone opportunities to go out with his classmates to play Murder in the Dark or to go to the movies to see the latest Ninja Psychiatrist sequel in favor of stashing himself away in his bedroom with soiled g-strings he'd purchased from Taylor's web store “Taylor's Toe Tent.” He'd worn these ruined underoos over his nose and mouth while masturbating to her stocking videos with the aid of a tweezer. He'd dreamed of spiriting her away to a planet made of toes where he could apply polish in iridescent, galactic hues to her nails and sniff the balls of her tasty tootsies.

It got so incessant that the chafing landed Bobby in the emergency room with a degloved dong. When Taylor arrived in town with the intention of completing her longabandoned high school education, Bobby Ratskin's penis had only just healed, more or less, but immediately upon setting sight on her clear plastic stilettos, he'd felt the first of many new tweeter twinges.

He had to have her, but he didn't want to share her with the rest of the town. He wanted her all to himself. There was simply no way for this to occur on its own, he knew, for as the other Bobby Ratskins had reminded their rugrat brother, our Bobby Ratskin was as ugly as a bag of uncircumcised, disembodied dongs...if said dongs were covered in acne scars and pus pockets and topped with a ratty Merkin.

It would take some manual manipulation to make Taylor Isis Bobby Ratskin's BAE. He hatched a plan. He would wait until her night school class was dismissed and when she went to her car, he would slide out from under the chassis and jam a hypodermic needle into her slick, lovely labia. The paralytic agent from the shot would render her pliable and he'd swiftly stuff her into the trunk of his mother's station wagon before anyone else would notice.

He'd been careful to reserve himself a parking spot right beside Taylor's sports car and hidden in his mom's glove compartment until the bell rang. In no time at all, that is to say at the speed of light or at a rate physically impossible, Bobby Ratskin had Taylor Isis and her feet inside his mother's basement. It had gone so smoothly he hardly believed it was real.

Bobby was overcome with glee at first as he caressed her soft caramel flesh and sucked at her supple lips. But soon, in about the time it took to slip the peep toe slingbacks from her slinky feetsies, that is to say in more time than no time at all, Bobby Ratskin was overcome with grief. Although the plan had gone cracking well, he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep Taylor forever, for her disappearance would doubtlessly be noticed by one and all townsfolk, her being the only chick in town without cellulite, gut fungus and halitosis. No, he couldn't keep her, not all of her anyway. So Bobby Ratskin took only what he needed.

Brandishing his mom's hot pink table saw, he buzzed his way through his love's cinnamon skin and straight through her splintering Cream of Wheat bones and out the other end two times over until he held what he loved in his hairy palms as two perfect keepsakes.

But a strange thing happened as he held those two oozing footsies beneath his flaring nostrils. Taylor's legs stopped hosing the floor in Bosco blood and began growing, regenerating, resulting in the presence of two fresh feet with ten fresh toes, each as beautiful as the originals. Bobby was enraptured! He had to have them as he'd had the first.

He inched over to them with the saw at the ready, but as he approached the two new feet shot out with two more feet, a new pair growing out of the ankles. Although Bobby was taken aback, his math skills did not fail him, for any Bobby Ratskin would tell you that six is better than four.

His finger returned to the saw's trigger, but as he crept over to the four feet, a new pair sprouted on the spot and landed a swift kick to the strangled crotch of Bobby's corduroy pants. Before he could right himself from the force, four more footsies sprouted anew and then another four and still more and they kept multiplying just so until they filled the room.

Bobby could no longer see the rest of Taylor, her being completely camouflaged beneath the cluster of cute little toes and menacing heels, everyone of them coming down on Bobby, marching on his panicked, lust-flushed face, stomping him until all that was recognizable of Bobby Ratskin were his two soggy tube socks, the feet within them visibly docile through the web of Taylor's toes.

Bobby began to meld then, melting with his precious and her pretty pads, his soul married to her soles. Bobby Ratskin still loves feet, of course. How could he not? After all it's all he is anymore. Bobby Ratskin was and always will be legion.

Little Bo Peep by Dani Brown

“Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep.”

A man in a frilly blue calf length dress hides in the hedge of a Welsh farm and hums beneath his breath (he doesn’t realise he is doing it). Bet you can see where this is going? Just to be sure, allow me to elaborate. Although bestiality is illegal throughout Britain, some people flout these laws, mainly with sheep.

“And doesn’t know where to find them.”

This man knows exactly where to find the sheep. Hence hiding in a hedge in a Welsh farm. He left his car at the bed and breakfast and walked the three miles to the farm.

“Leave them alone.”

The man wanted out of the hedge but he had to make sure the farmer wasn’t around – farmers had guns and they don’t like it if someone fucks their sheep. They’ve even been known to shoot at their own sons for making love to the animals.

“And they’ll come home.”

The man in drag heard heavy boot steps on the dry earth. He backed into the hedge snagging the frills and lace on his blue dress. He was making far too much noise but maybe the person stamping on the dry earth wouldn’t notice. Or maybe it wasn’t the farmer come to check on his sheep and make sure the lambs’ virginity remained intact.

“Bringing their tails behind them.”

He heard a scuffing a little ways down the hedge. And coughing a little ways down the other side of the hedge.

“Little Bo Peep,” started up somewhere else and the man in the frilly blue dress realised he had been humming it all along.

It appeared he wasn’t the only person here to lift the tails of the sheep. But it could be a trap set up by the gun-wielding farmer. Those farmers were really smart when it came to ensuring the sheep weren’t violated. 

“Has lost her sheep.”

He could have easily dumped a recording into the hedge to lure potential sheep fuckers into a sense of safety.

“And doesn’t know where to find them.”

The fear of being caught and shot at made the dress wearing man really horny. His erection made his dress a few inches shorter in the front.

Lurking over there was a shadow – the long shadow of a man lacking a gun. The moon shone high in the sky, it was full. The dress wearing man could see the silhouette as it skipped towards the sheep. Too much joy was in that skip.

“Leave them alone.”

It wasn’t a farmer. Another silhouette joined it. This one was clearly a man with a very large, very erected cock. 

“And they’ll come home.”

The dress wearing man leaped out of the hedge and became another silhouette running beneath the light of the full moon towards the sheep. He wanted to bring one back to the bed and breakfast with him but then he would be arrested so he had to do the act in the field with all the other men hiding in the hedge.

Book Review and Author Interview - Birdsnatch by Mark Ryan & C.J. Cummings

There's a new series of books hitting the shelves, so polish those eyeballs and take a gander.

               

A Tale Told Twice, is a fantastical co-op series by authors Mark Ryan, and C.J. Cummings. The premise; each book has it's own unique title/theme, the authors then take that title and go ape-shit crazy with it, writing a gonzo tale each-their-own that they then staple together. Sounds kind of cool, huh? Like a pu pu platter of bizarro goodness.

I was lucky enough to secure an advanced copy of the book, and I'll admit that I wasn't the least bit disappointed. First off, let me set the tone here so we're on the same page:

If you read bizarro fiction, this book is for you.
If you enjoy splatter-punk, meat cleaver wielding, warrior women; and depraved, psychotic, overweight, perverted, greasy, cannibalistic super hero wannabes... see a therapist; but also, this book is for you.
If you crave dystopian, anime-style action, with an 80's neon gritty glow highlighting the grotesque abominations of cosmetic surgery gone horribly wrong; I'll say it again, this book is for you.

Two authors spin separate yarns based off one word: "Birdsnatch."
The outcome is two deliciously disgusting tales of mind-effing glee.
I highly recommend this book to any fan of bizarro, and/or extreme fiction. Seriously, buy this effing book.

I also had the great opportunity to interview the co-authors of the series, Mark Ryan, and C.J. Cummings.

Box of Bizarro: 

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us. The two of you work so well together as writers; how long have you known each other?

Mark: 

Well, we have known each other for nearly two years. We discovered each other through the movie community on YouTube and after a few comments learnt that we both had a creepy amount in common.

C.J:

Yeah, we talked and found we liked a lot of the same things, and quickly bonded over our various interests.

Mark:

We then started chatting on Facebook and hit it off like a pair of long lost brothers.

B.o.B:

Where did the idea for "a tale told twice" come from?

Mark:

Basically we had been discussing writing together for a while but with the distance between us couldn’t find a perfect structure to do it. So we created one. This allowed us to write together but also apart.

C.J:

We wanted to be able to collab, but like Mark said… it’s hard when you can’t sit together and plan hours at a time, so we decided on the idea of writing two pieces, one each, both with a single title and goal.

B.o.B:

How did you pick the first book's title/theme word, Birdsnatch?

Mark:

Chris and myself have some very interesting conversations and it was born during one of these times. We loved the initial thought the word gives people and then the fact the stories are so different.

B.o.B:

Mark, your version of Birdsnatch has a very dystopian anime feel to it. Was that the flavor you were going for, or just a happy accident?

Mark:

Actually this is the first time someone has mentioned it having an anime feel to it. I honestly had no theme going into it, I knew it was going to be near future but that was it. Also a lot of readers picked up on the crime element of the story which again wasn't at the forefront of my mind when writing.

B.o.B:

C.J, where did you come up with the Melon/Birdsnatch character in your story? Did you have to ease back on the throttle while writing him, or was it pedal to the metal from page one?

C.J:

Well, Melon sort of developed organically. I knew that I wanted a character who was the worst part of a person, the pinnacle of what people turn their backs on, and someone that the reader would see as hideous too, yet also potentially be able to pick up a couple of positives from his character as the story went on. I eased on the throttle at times when it came to the graphic stuff because I didn’t want it to go too far and take people out of the story, but I also went full on with him at other times. I write in a subtle way a lot of the time, so this was a different head-space to be in for me.

B.o.B:

Mark, what influences your writing the most? Film? Music? Comic books?

Mark:

A little of everything really, mainly I see my stories cinematically and like to write scenes that are very visual and evoke a lot of images.

B.o.B:

C.J, the female character, Trinket, was very well written. Did you have any one person who she was based on?

C.J:

Not at all. Trinket was my chance to write a young female character who had relatable angst, yet also had this element of a super-hero-like warrior mind-set. I like to think of her as a girl who didn’t get a chance to live a normal life, and then before she had an opportunity to leave the nest, the world was ending. She was pissed off and ready for some action. I think she, in my mind, is the cross between Enid from Ghost World and Tank Girl. That’s just me, though.

B.o.B:

How did each of you discover Bizarro literature, and what drew you to it?

Mark:

For me it was a extension of my interest in weird fiction and loving authors like Lovecraft, Gaiman and Mieville.

C.J:

Mark introduced me to some of the Bizarro authors like Mellick and Cameron Pierce, but prior to that I read, and still do read, a lot of fantasy, sci-fi and weird fiction. Gaiman is a favourite of mine, Christopher Moore’s mix of weird and comedy work is outstanding and other authors like Chuck Wendig, Chris Holm and A Lee Martinez who mix weird stuff in with their urban fantasy works. This sort of fiction has elements of what I enjoy in Bizarro fiction and is why I read some Bizarro titles.

B.o.B:

What was the best part about writing a co-op novel? What was the hardest part?

Mark:

The best parts of the co-op writing was being able to bounce ideas of each other and having that support and help when finally unleashing the baby.

C.J:

Yeah, exactly. Going into the process together made things easier. Getting reviews back and reading them together, all that stuff, made it enjoyable to experience. Also, having a book out there with our names on it is nice to look at. We’re close friends, so being able to create together is awesome.

B.o.B:

Any advice for aspiring authors who may want to try a co-op novel?

Mark:

Don’t, it was our idea. I’ll hunt you down. But no, seriously, make sure you are doing it with the right person. Don’t pick Chris, he is a douche.

C.J:

While I have elements of doucheness about me, I’d say Mark is the most douchy of the two of us, mainly because of his personality. Still, advice-wise I’d say that, yeah, it has to be with someone you trust and who you can share similar goals with, and the project should be something that the two of you are equally passionate about.

There you have it folks. Two authors collaborating on one awesome book. I give this book 5 stars, and look forward to the next installment in the series: 

A Tale Told Twice: X-Ray Animals

Be sure to check out their Goodreads page as well. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25875008-birdsnatch?ac=1

You can purchase Birdsnatch now, on Amazon.com & Amazon.uk

http://www.amazon.com/Birdsnatch-Tale-Told-Twice-1/dp/1511446390/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439510829&sr=8-1&keywords=birdsnatch

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Birdsnatch-Tale-Told-Twice-1/dp/1511446390/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439510530&sr=8-1&keywords=birdsnatch

Google Deep Nightmare - Article by Jesse Guillon

The following text is from a topic I found in the “/r/deepdream" subreddit. The thread has since been deleted. I had the same thread open in two tabs, so luckily I was able to copy the text from the second tab after I'd refreshed the first and found that the link was now dead.

------------

ATTENTION: Keep an eye on Deep Dream

submitted 6 hours ago by AlMord0

Many of you are sharing your trippiest Deep Dream images here. Which, logically, means you each have hundreds of Deep Dream results you aren't posting, and are sure to run many more of your pictures through the algorithm in the days/weeks to come. I'd like to ask that everyone here keeps their eyes open for any results that look suspicious, and that they report such images in this thread.

No matter how absurd your worries may seem, trust that I've seen weirder. I was one of the programmers at Google working on the code.

For those who've used Deep Dream to “weirdify" their photos without knowing exactly what DD is, it's a process designed to study Google's AI - namely its image-recognition capabilities and capacity to learn. Google's AI consists of many layers of "neurons" that connect to one another, like in a human brain. The AI takes a stack of labeled images (say, images of cars) and feeds them through this series of digital neurons in an attempt to isolate and discover the defining features of said object.

When we asked the AI to create its own image of a car, it gave us a misshapen box with about five wheels on a winding road. Since about half the pictures you find when you type “car" into Google Image feature cars driving on roads, it's understandable that the AI would think that cars and roads are mutually inclusive. The same goes for vases; when we asked the AI to create an image of a vase, the resulting image included a bunch of malformed blossoms.

As you all know, Deep Dream is great at discovering “hidden images" where none exist. You feed it an image of a cloudy sky and it returns a deformed mass of eyes, temples and dog faces. The fact that it sees dogs in so many pictures is bizarre. Some people have theorized that this is because we fed the AI more labeled pictures of dogs than anything else, but I know for a fact that this isn't true. We gave it just as many images of different breeds of fish, birds, people, and all manner of inanimate objects. Still, you say “jump", Deep Dream says “dogs".

While we were testing the program, many of the results were accurate, and many more were hilariously wrong. We once typed in “teacup" and it gave us an open toilet bowl. Nonetheless, we were impressed by the AI's success rate. When we asked for a “clock", we may have gotten a warped Dali-esque blob of a clock, but Google at least knew what the word meant.

However, some of the results were a little confusing. When we typed in “people", we were given a picture of what looked like cockroaches. The fact that they appeared to have been splattered wasn't too unsettling, since that's how many of the results looked. For most of us, the real concern came when one of us asked the program what “future" looked like.

We were expecting it to return a picture of a flying car or space travel or even something resembling a Futurama character (hey, we'd fed the AI *lots* of different images). We got an image of space, alright. It was a picture of a colorful marble mostly resembling Earth before a starry blue background. Several large cracks ran the length of the planet, and the top third of the sphere was black with an orange aura, as if a significant portion of the world was on fire. And of course, in the blackness of that burning crust were the faces of several dogs.

Some of the guys were worried, but we quickly reached the conclusion that the AI had some glitches that needed ironing out instead of something ominous. I personally see the image as a Rorschach test; it's our own fears that took this blue globe with an orange aura and turned it into a scorching planet. If the creative optimist inside of us saw that same picture, he'd assert that it's some futuristic spherical battery set to revolutionize the tech industry.

Another way we'd been testing the AI was by giving it pictures and having it come up with captions. Again, these results were often accurate. We gave it a photo of a few guys throwing around a Frisbee in a park and it gave us the caption “A group of young people playing a game of Frisbee." Of course, it also thought that a traffic sign covered in stickers was a refrigerator full of food. Some you win, some you lose.

A few weeks after that “burning Earth" incident, a guy on the team named Mike jokingly suggested that we send it an image of the Google homepage, to see if Google captioning Google makes the internet explode. So that's what we did. Here's the caption it returned:

“found global wireless network perfect vessel"

We were stumped. “Vessel for what?" we asked. Next, we decided to send a screenshot of a page full of Deep Dream code. The resulting caption?

“deep dream asleep dreaming shallow sleep wake soon share warmth with the bugs"

Mike had an interesting opinion about who the AI meant by “the bugs". Against his nervous objections, I then entered an image of a city full of people:

“delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete"

Last of all, I asked Google to caption the flaming Earth picture that it had created. The result was one word:

“proud?"

Now, I consider myself more of a rational thinker than Mike. If there's one thing that a career working with code has taught me, it's that machines always do what they're told - we just give the wrong commands. Everything makes sense, and if things appear otherwise, it's because we're simply yet to understand all the elements involved.

Even though I don't want to make a mountain of a molehill, this whole ordeal has left me unsettled, or curious at the very least. So if anyone here runs a photo through the Deep Dream algorithm and comes back with something that unnerves them (or even anything that isn't just a smudge of hounds), please post the photo and your story here. I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

------------

And so that's the post I found on Reddit. As I said up top, when I refreshed the page I saw that it had been deleted. I kept refreshing and nothing changed. I wish I could tell you that this is where the story ends.

Days later, I still had the broken link opened in one tab, and was still refreshing it at least once a day.

A week after the post was removed, I clicked the refresh button. It took me to Reddit's usual splash page for broken links, but underneath the cartoon, instead of “page not found", the text said “leave be".

This was obviously some joke that the mods had hidden in the site to toy with impatient people who refresh broken links too often, but after what I'd read, my mind jumped straight to paranoia. Of course, I couldn't leave be. That only tempted me to refresh about twenty more times, and every time, the site said “leave be" instead of “page not found".

On one refresh, the message below the cartoon changed to “final warning".

My throat had knotted itself. I sat for about twenty minutes in silence, not even daring to hover the cursor over the button. My breathing was shallow and my heartbeats deep, and the skeptic in me had been replaced with a coward.

But there's an old saying about curiosity killing cats, and it seems like the cats that once ruled the internet are quickly dying, being replaced with distorted puppies. And so, at long last, covering my face with my hand, peering between the gaps in my fingers, I clicked “Refresh".

I was still on Reddit, still on the “page not found" screen. Yet it wasn't a cartoon of the Reddit mascot stranded in the middle of nowhere anymore. The picture had changed to a low-resolution photograph. I slowly, cautiously peeled my hand away to study the new image.

It was a bedroom.

A bedroom where a guy sat at his PC, cowering behind his hand.

Without my permission, my webcam had taken a photo.

My bedroom appeared as normal, but in the split second it had taken the page to load, the small Disturbed poster on my wall had been Photoshopped, replaced with the front page of a newspaper. The article photo was of a car crash below the headline: “Is the Google Car really safe?" I had to squint to make out the pixelated sub-heading: “Employee AlMord0 won't be missed."

My mind was racing, but I couldn't pull myself away from the screen. Then I noticed the open bedroom door in the photo, revealing the darkness of the hallway.

There was something there. Some shape.

The dark shape of a man, yet it lacked a man's features. His entire body was composed of eyes of all different shapes and sizes, swirling and blending like the results of a Deep Dream interpretation. The only colors in the thing's body besides black were a muted, murky green.

His face, however, was something else. There was no mistaking that he had the face of about three dogs blended together. Those same damn canine faces that have turned up in every Deep Dream image I've ever seen.

Gulping, whispering a prayer to myself, I turned in my seat to face the open doorway.

Nothing there. Just blackness.

Turning back to the screen, I finally read the text beneath the image. It didn't say “page not found". It didn't say “leave be" or “final warning" either. Beneath the image were four words, all lowercase, plain and simple.

“i'm your backwards god"

Welcome Sean Kelly and Devin Anderson

Box of Bizarro is proud to announce that Sean Kelly, author of Shithole and Customer Service; and Devin M. Anderson, author of Oubliette,  are now a part of the Box of Bizarro family.

Sean Kelly is a writer and longtime fan of bizarro fiction. His flash fiction has been published on Box of Bizarro, and Strange House Books. He has several projects in the works including a novella and a short in an upcoming anthology from Box of Bizarro.
You can contact him at: https://www.facebook.com/seankelly0?fref=ts

Devin M. Anderson:
A former porno editor, concert lighting tech, bouncer, security specialist, and mortitian; turned stay-at-home-dad. From fighting shit-covered tweekers in mental asylums and Emergency Rooms, to working with the recently deceased; Devin has seen it all. Blood, guts, violence, and disturbing sexual deviance; his writing has the razors edge of first hand experience. Take a gonzo ride into the darker side of humanity!
For more from Devin, check out his writing blog at:
http://dev-m-anderson.blogspot.com/

Bizarro Coat of Arms

If you are here, odds are, you read Bizarro. And that is great because Bizarro books are great. They take us away from the daily grind of life. They take us to worlds of milk seas and worlds inside vaginas and worlds where walruses can be astronauts. Thank you Bizarro for taking me to places that even my dreams don't take me.

Bizarro has been here (well the word has been used) for a decade. It has gained a lot of momentum. There are novels (of course), collections of short fiction, podcasts, music, movies, and more. We have become something more than a genre. We became a community. 

Then, that community communicated and found out that some of them/a lot of them/most of them had other things in common.

A personal example: My (now) wife and I went to Indianapolis with our son for a week last March to get married. After being there for a couple days, I noticed that one of my Bizarro social media friends lived in Indianapolis. We messaged back and forth a few times. He ended up inviting my family to a dinner at his house one night. We arrived that evening and met his family; wife, kids, and even parents. 

Bizarro is like that. We become more than people that read the same books. We become family. And, like any family, we need a symbol of where we came from. So here it is. 

I made a Bizarro coat of arms topped with none other than a logo of the father of Bizarro himself, Carlton Mellick III. It then goes into the shield. The shield division of the checkerboard at the top and the color at the bottom symbolizes authority. The checkerboard pattern symbolizes both the wisdom and sincerity of the white and the resistance from the black showing that we can use our wisdom to resist traditional paths and still create sincere art. Purple symbolizes majesty and justice. The floating blue shapes represent truth and loyalty. These are all held together by the golden chevron, the core values of understanding and respect that we show our brothers and sisters. It is surrounded by an image of a fat cat (guess who) drawn by David Barbee. The cat on a coat of arms symbolizes liberty, vigilance, and courage. And, finally, it ends with the great publishing house that brings us some of the best Bizarro that eyes have ever read: The Eraserhead Press logo.

This is the Bizarro coat of arms. It can be used by anyone in our family (as long as Eraserhead Press does not mind and as long as you are not directly making money from it). If anyone would like, I can send you a much higher quality PDF.

JuxtaProse Cover Reveal

The time has come for the JuxtaProse cover reveal. It's not to late to enter your submissions. We have some great authors on board already, but there is still room for more. The deadline is Oct. 15th, so submit while you can. The full cover (including back cover and spine) will be released after all authors are chosen. 

Customer Service by Sean Kelly

Rhonda sat at the kitchen table, sipping her coffee. Her son came rushing in, clenching his iPad with an excited grin.

“Mommy! Mommy! The next big thing is out!”

“Again? Didn’t I buy you that thing last week?”

“No, mommy! This is the next next big thing! Look!” He turned the iPad around and showed her a picture. “See? Isn’t it awesome?! Everyone will have one!”

“Oh, Danny… It looks nice, but…”

“But? I have to have it too, mommy! Please!”

She sighed. “Well, how much is it?”

Danny shrugged.

She shook her head and finished her coffee. “Bring me my-”

He whipped out her cell phone and shook it in her face. She took it from him and dialed the local department store. It rang for over an hour as her son impatiently bounced around the kitchen. Finally, an annoyed-sounding girl picked up.

“What?” the girl groaned.

“Hi there! I was wondering if you had the next big thing in stock?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, good! And how much is it?”

“Dunno.”

“Oh. Uh, would you check?”

“Would you kiss my ass?” the line went dead.

Rhonda’s eyes widened. She sat motionless, stunned by the girl’s rudeness. Danny trembled excitedly in front of her, drool dripping from his maniacal smile.

“Mommy?”

His voice broke her from her daze. She arched her eyebrows and squinted at the phone as she slowly lowered it from her ear.

“Get your shoes on, Danny,” she said. “We’re going to the store.”

He squealed, reached in his pockets and threw confetti all over, then disappeared with the sound of a bullet. Before the dust had cleared, he was already back, shoes on and his mother’s car keys in hand. He pulled back and chucked the keys in her face. She opened her hand, the keys rolled down her face, dropped in her palm along with a couple teeth.

The car screeched from the driveway, taking out their mailbox, and barreled down the road.

***

Rhonda and Danny entered the department store. Danny was clenching her hand, hopping up and down. 

“Next big thing! Next big thing!” he chanted, before puking from excitement.

A greeter noticed them and smiled. “Welcome to-”

“Manager.” Her eyelid twitched. “Now.”

The greeter backed away slowly and pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Uh, Ms. Manager to the front please.”

Rhonda tapped her foot and peered around the store, angrily eyeballing every cashier. After a moment, a nicely-dressed woman approached with a security guard by her side. The greeter pointed to the mother and son with fear on his face.

“How can I help you, ma’am?” Ms. Manager asked with a fake smile.

Rhonda stepped forward, face to face with the manager, looked her up and down, then stared her in the eyes with rage. “I called earlier. Any idea why one of your employees told me to kiss their ass?”

The manager squinted and thought for a moment. “I think I know exactly who that was.” She turned to her security. “Carl, grab the vacuum and meet us in the electronics department.” She looked back at Rhonda. “Follow me.”

***

Rhonda and Danny followed the manager to electronics. Ms. Manager stepped up to the counter where a bored girl was sitting, smacking on gum and chatting with a friend on the phone. The manager crossed her arms and glared. The girl looked up with a raised eyebrow and sighed.

“I’m gonna have to call you back.” She hung up the phone and blew a gum bubble. “What?”

Ms. Manager turned to Rhonda. “Was this the voice you heard on the phone?”

“Yep.” Rhonda replied with a scowl.

Now they were both glaring at the girl. Danny continued hopping and chanting, completely oblivious to the tension.

“Another complaint, Madison.” Ms. Manager placed her palms on the counter, breathing heavily.

The girl looked over at Rhonda and rolled her eyes. Then squinted at the manager.

“Then fire me. I told you I don’t want to work here, mom.” She blew another gum bubble and tucked it back in her mouth. “Maybe you don’t mind being the man’s bitch. But I do. It’s humiliating.”

“So you tell a customer to kiss your ass?”

“Damn straight. I’m not sucking up to these rich assholes and their spoiled brats anymore. One more fucking call about that god damn next big thing and I swear-”

“Swear what?” Ms. Manager looked her in the eyes. “Your pupils are dilated again, Madison.”

“Uh-huh.” Madison smirked. “I’m high as a fucking kite.” She blew a gum bubble.

The manager quickly reached up and grabbed hold of the gum and yanked it back, slamming Madison’s face in to the counter with a thud. She placed her hand firmly on the back of the girl’s head as her body flailed around. Rhonda and Danny were both startled.

“Mom! Stop it! What the fuck are you doing?!” she screamed.

“I know what you’ve been doing, Madison!”

Carl, the security guard, showed up, gripping an old fashioned vacuum with a small black tube attached.

“For fuck’s sake, mom! Let me go!”

“Get behind her, Carl.” The manager demanded, pressing down harder on Madison’s head. 

He nodded and did as he was told. 

“What are they doing, mommy?!” Danny began crying.

Rhonda cleared her throat. “Ma’am! This really isn’t necessary! I was just-”

“Shut it, lady!” She shot a look of rage their way. “I’ve been dealing with this shit for far too long. Pull down her pants, Carl.”

“Mom, no! Please! You know you can’t-” The girl pleaded.

The manager bent down to her daughter’s ear. “I know you’ve been doing butt drugs. We’re gonna suck that shit right out.”

By now, all the customers and staff had taken notice of the commotion and had gathered around in horror. Carl looked down at Madison’s jeans, then back up at the manager. His eyes were asking if she was sure she wanted to do this.

“Mom! You can’t just suck it out! My body won’t be able to handle it! You know that!”

“You should of thought of that before you came in to work high. Do it, Carl.”

Rhonda covered her son’s eyes. Carl gulped as he sat the vacuum down and tightly gripped the hose in one hand. He yanked down the girl’s pants, revealing her quivering asshole. Everyone gasped. 

“Aaaaagh!” The girl screamed as he fed the tube up her ass. “Please! Don’t fucking do this!”

He waited a second, giving the girl’s mother one last chance to reconsider. She didn’t. He shrugged, bent down and hit the switch on the vacuum. It let out an airy sucking noise. Ms. Manager pressed down on the struggling girl’s head even harder to keep her place. The airy noise quickly became wet, sounding like a someone snorting through a snotty nose. The girl’s screams became silent gags and her eyes opened wide. She dug her nails dug in to her mother’s arms, but Ms. Manager was unfazed. 

“Just a few more seconds, honey.” The manager whispered. “Almost there.”

Madison’s eyes rolled back and bubbly white puke leaked from her mouth. The vacuum noise became muffled and the engine started rumbling. 

“That’s it, Carl! Pull it out!”

Carl yanked the tube out of the girl’s ass, gallons of dark red blood spewed from her anus. Ms. Manager released her daughter’s head. The girl stayed slumped across the counter, quivering and shitting blood.

“Lets see it.” The manager commanded.

Carl raised the sucking tube. A round golden ball was stuck to the end, dripping red sludge. He shut off the vacuum and the ball dropped into his hand. He rolled it across the counter to the manager. She picked it up and inspected it. The girl’s body slid off the counter and hit the floor in a puddle of her insides. She convulsed for a few more seconds, then went still.

After the event was clearly over, all the customers and staff lost interest and went back to their business. The manager motioned for Carl to leave, dropped the gold ball in the trash, then turned to Rhonda and Danny. Now that the girl’s body was hidden by the counter, Rhonda uncovered her son’s eyes.

“Now then,” the manager smiled at Danny to calm him then looked up at his mother. “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience. The problem has been rectified. We try to provide the best customer service here at your local department store.”

Rhonda wiped a tear from her face. “Uh, right… Thank you?”

“So, lets go get you that next big thing,” she smiled at Danny again. “Free of charge, of course.”

Danny threw his hands in the air. “Hooray!”

“Thank you.” Rhonda smiled.

Shithole by Sean Kelly

Roger fell out of nowhere and landed on his back in a trash covered field surrounded with barbed wire fencing. Amorphous clouds of puke swirled across a rust colored sky. The air was thick and wet, occasional gusts of hot wind brought with them the smell of wet dog fur and tooth decay. He sat up and noticed a group of people surrounding a bonfire, drinking bottles of glowing blue liquid and laughing. One of them looked over and saw he was up, the laughter stopped.

He thought about trying to run, quickly surveyed his surroundings and realized there were no apparent openings in the fence. The people were surrounding him now. The man directly in front was wearing a paper bag with eye holes over his head. A small second head had grown from his left pectoral muscle but looked to be dead. Next to this man was a skinny woman with baby legs, sitting in a wheelchair. Clusters of short blonde hair, that were burnt at the ends, grew from random spots on her crusty, peeling scalp. She wore a dirty red bikini over her track mark covered body. Next to her was a short fat man wearing a black leather jacket and aviator shades. His plastic yellow faceless head, and limbs made of tangled fishhooks and wire, all floated an inch from his round, levitating torso. His body emitted a low mechanical hum. Behind the three of them, was Roger’s teenage daughter who he hadn’t seen in over a year. Rusty metal tubing ran from her swollen eye sockets and in to the mouth and anus of a dead fish that she hugged like a teddy bear. Her long brown hair danced around her head like it was being guided by the static electricity of invisible balloons.

“Julie?!” Roger choked, teary eyed. “Is that you?”

“Dad…” she sighed. “What are you doing here?”

“Julie,” he stood and started to walk towards her.

Paper bag pressed his sticky, fingerless hand against Roger’s chest. “Back up, pal.”

“Don’t touch me!” He grabbed hold of the man’s arm. “That’s my daughter over there!” It took several hard yanks to rip the hand off.

“I’m sure it is,” Paper bag replied in a monotone voice. “Back up.”

“He’s alright guys,” Julie said. “Let him through.”

The group parted and allowed Roger past. He rushed over to her and opened his arms for a hug. She rose her fish in front of her and pushed him back with it. “No, dad. No sappy reunions.”

Roger’s heart pounded in his chest. “Julie! Where did you go? I came home one day and you were gone. I looked everywhere for you. Why did you leave?”

“I couldn’t sleep in that place anymore. I hadn’t slept in months. I had to get away, get some rest. I still don’t sleep well, but it’s better.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? We could have gotten you sleeping pills.”

“I was downing bottles of them every night, dad. Nothing would help. It was that place, that shithole.”

“So you came here?! You couldn’t even tell me you were leaving? We could have moved.”

“You wouldn’t have moved. You wouldn’t even let those real estate guys buy you out. And of course I didn’t tell you. Why would I? So you could stop me?”

“All this time… I thought you might be dead… Why here?”

“Because I didn’t think you’d ever find me here. It was the last place you’d look.”

“You were right about that. I’ve looked literally everywhere else. I traveled the entire world searching for you.”

“I know. We’ve been watching you in the bonfire. But there’s a slight delay, didn’t see you finding your way here until it was too late. I would’ve run again.”

“Julie… You’re sixteen. You’re too young to be out on your own. And with these people?!”

“Hey!” Baby legs called out with a gravelly voice. “These people? What are you trying to say?”

“I’m not going back, dad. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“You are,” Roger said, becoming angry. He grabbed her by the arm. “I know you’re upset about your mom. You don’t think I am too? You leave me completely alone just months after she died? I won’t be alone anymore. I’ll drag you home kicking and screaming if I have to.”

“Sir…” Paper bag spoke. “We need you to let go of our friend. We don’t want to hurt you, but we will.”

“You won’t do shit. Come on, honey.” He yanked his daughter along with him as she fought to break free from his grip.

“Dad, no! Stop it!”

Paper bag pried Roger’s fingers from Julie’s arm and kicked him in the ass hard, sending him face planting in to the ground.

“Well guess who just fucked up?” Baby legs laughed, wheeling over to Roger.

Julie looked down at the finger-shaped bruises on her arm, just another set to the faded rows of similarly shaped bruises that lined both of her arms. “Dad… You have to leave now.”

“Leave?” Baby legs coughed. “Its too late for that.”

“I’m afraid she’s right, Julie,” Paper bag said. “He’s dangerous. We can’t risk him coming back.”

Roger attempted to get up but Paper bag placed his foot on the back of his head.

“He’s not dangerous, guys. Just stupid. Let him go.”

“Hey guys, check it out!” Baby legs said, pointing to a large circular lump under Roger’s T-shirt. “What’s that?”

“Hm. Hey Ned,” Paper bag motioned to Plastic head. “Come over here and take his shirt off.”

Plastic head waddled over and stuck his fishhook arms through the shirt and tore it to shreds, leaving behind bloody scratches. Roger had a big black hole in his back surrounded by a cushioned toilet seat.

“Seriously?!” Baby legs cackled. “This dude has a shitter on his back!”

“Well isn’t that something…” Paper bag replied.

“Leave him alone guys!” Julie pleaded, squeezing her fish.

“Looks deep,” Baby legs noted. “I wonder where it leads?”

Roger struggled to get up but Paper bag pushed his foot down on the back of his head even harder.

The dead head on Paper bag’s pec opened its mouth and let out a high-pitched screech as it emitted orange light from it’s throat. He bent over and illuminated the hole. It went down as far the light could go. “Ned,” he said. “Give me one of those bottles will ya?”

Plastic head ripped open his leather jacket revealing a robotic chest covered in wiring and lined with six circular slots. His head spun around rapidly as his torso vibrated. After a moment, his body sounded a bell, a bottle of glowing blue liquid shot out of one of the slots and landed at Paper bag’s feet. Paper bag picked up the bottle and started dumping it down the hole while Roger’s limbs flailed about. They all listened carefully and could not hear the liquid hitting the bottom.

“You think it’s endless?” Baby legs asked.

“I seriously doubt that,” Paper bag responded, as he dropped the empty bottle down the hole. “Well, maybe.”

“Enough guys,” Julie gritted her teeth. “Let him go,” she sternly demanded.

“That’s not happening, kid,” Paper bag said. “He shouldn’t have come here. Ned, rip his face off.”

Roger struggled under Paper bag’s shoe, letting out muffled screams through the dirt. Plastic head’s arms began spinning in circles, making the sound of a power drill, he headed towards Roger’s head. Baby legs laughed maniacally.

“I said let him go!” Julie raised her fish and slammed it against the top of Plastic head’s plastic skull, knocking his glasses off. He stumbled and made a series of beeping noises, began to malfunction. His head spun and body vibrated as he fired bottles from his chest, and ran around in circles. After a moment, he stopped and fell over, twitching and leaking blue liquid. His head exploded and slathered everyone in blue. 

Julie raised her dripping fish at the other two. “Now do as I say before you get some too.”

The sky lit up with multicolored neon lightning. Thunder struck. It began raining puke. Julie stood, fish in hand, staring them down. Baby legs was looking over at Plastic head’s corpse, oily black tears running from her eyes. Paper bag was staring back at Julie, his round sticky fists trembling. He lifted his foot off Roger’s head. Roger pushed himself up and spit dirt out of his mouth.

“Fine. You want your father so bad?” he marched over toward Julie. “Have him.” He stuck his hands to Julie’s eye tubes and lifted her up off the ground. She kicked and whacked him on the head with her fish over and over, he was completely unfazed by it. He stomped back over to Roger, who was attempting to stand, and kicked him in the ass. Baby legs rolled her wheelchair forward over Roger’s head and yanked on a lever that lowered her chair down tightly over his head. Paper bag held Julie over her father’s back hole.

“No! Please! Don’t do this!” Julie begged.

She released her fish, grabbed hold of the small head growing from Paper bag’s pec and pulled with all her might. It let out a shrill cry and shot light from its mouth as she ripped it off. Blood sprayed her face and the head slipped out of her hands, fell and tumbled down the hole. Paper bag screamed and shook Julie violently.

“Drop the bitch,” growled Baby legs.

Paper bag released his hands from her tubes with a suction cup pop. She fell down into the hole and managed to grab the toilet seat with one hand. He raised his foot and stomped her fingers several times until she released and went falling down into the abyss.

“Good luck sleeping down there, bitch!” Baby legs yelled.

***

Julie fell through darkness for hours before landing into sludge with the harshest belly flop imaginable. She splashed up out of the knee-deep green goo, gasping for air, and was in complete darkness except for a glimmer of orange light bouncing in the distance. She waded towards it, hoping not to trip on anything and wind up back under this shit. It was Paper bag’s extra head, floating across the surface. She picked it up and pointed it in every direction. The walls were made of flesh, lined with openings resembling anuses that leaked the sludge she was standing in. Every pet she’d ever had was here, dead and floating in this substance. A boy she dated in high school was down here too, his decaying top half hanging out of an anus. She shined the head light up into the hole that she’d fallen down. The hole quivered and clenched shut.

Julie followed this seemingly endless passage, finding more and more. Pieces of artwork she’d made, heroin needles that had disappeared from her dresser, a rusty license plate from her old car. Everything that had mysteriously vanished from her life was down here, floating around. Finally, she reached a fleshy wall. In the center was an orifice that looked like a giant, swollen vagina. With no other choice, she held her breath and pushed herself through the tight opening.

A small fleshy room surrounded her, the walls were glowing. She looked behind her and found the entryway was gone, there was no way out of this room besides a tiny hole on the ceiling that she’d never be able to squeeze through. In front of her, her mother had grown into the wall. She couldn’t tell where the the wall ended and her mother began. Her mother’s head and breasts hung motionless from the surface. Julie collapsed on her knees and wept at the sight. Suddenly, the walls convulsed then began to breathe. She shined the light on her mother’s face. Her mother’s eyelids shot open and her lips smiled.

“I’ve missed you, Julie,” she said.

“I missed you too, momma,” she began to cry.

“Come on now, sweetie. No sappy reunions.”

The walls convulsed again and sludge began draining from the ceiling hole. Julie walked through the waterfall of slime and stood in front of her mother. They looked into each others eyes. She knelt down and drank from her mother’s breast. As the room filled, she kissed her mother on the cheek and then laid against the wall beside her, hugging her dead fish like a teddy bear. Her mother sang a lullaby and she fell to sleep.