The Local Crypt | Issue 001

a DIY horror literary zine

ISSUE 001 | FALL 2023

is a diy horror literary magazine.

THE LOCAL CRYPT acknowledges that we are on the unceded and traditional territory of the Stó:lō, Semá:th, and Mathxwí people.

A STATEMENT ON CONTENT: Horror is a genre that is innately rooted in the dark corners of existence. Even the most fun horror that doesn’t actively seek to provoke still pulls from a toolbox of imagery that can be disturbing, grotesque, and upsetting for individuals from all walks of life. While we at The Local Crypt have gone out of our way to ensure that none of the stories contained herein are exploitative or gratuitous in nature, we recognize that some of the images and themes may contain graphic violence, language, and sensitive topics which may be upsetting to some people.

Audience discretion is advised.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Kellyn Kavanagh CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Skylar Frances Visit our website at: thelocalcrypt.com Contact us at: thelocalcrypt@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram at @thelocalcrypt Please visit our website for submission guidelines for future issues.

Illustrations sourced from heritagetype.com Imagery sourced from istockphoto.com, stock.adobe.com, and unsplash.com

THE LOCAL CRYPT

ADRIEL BRANDT is a writer, audiobook narrator, and tabletop game designer. Adriel’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” will be on stage at the Abby Arts Center this November.

CHANDY DANCEY is a recent science degree alumni from UFV who also thinks the arts are rad. At any given time she can be caught getting lost on mountains, having her head buried in a book, or yearning for autumnal delights.

KIRSTEN FLEMING is a digital artist and sinister force from the Fraser Valley who loves all things weird and unsettling. You can find her sporadically posted work on Instagram at @kirstensartstuff.

CATHERINE FRIESEN is a writer and art therapist living on the side of a mountain. Their work has been published in a number of journals, magazines, and in book form (twice). When not writing, they can be found baking cakes or getting lost in the woods. Find them on Instagram @junesprout.

COSMO ATKINS is an English student passionate about humanism, punk, and wildlife. He is studying creative writing and poetry. His interests are in the Gothic and Romantic eras, anthropology, natural sciences, and thanatology.

NOAH JOHNSON (they/him) is a 23-year-old asexual poet and artist living on the unceded territory of the Stó:lō Nation. They dream of becoming a movie/tv show writer and want to give asexuality more recognition. Noah is a Virgo, enjoys bubblegum ice-cream and likes conversations that turn strangers into friends.

TYLER JOSHUA is a 28 year old masc non binary person who is passionate about the transference of emotion through written and physical media. they find joy in using alliteration to form flowing fragments. they live in milton, ontario, and have been writing for 22 years.

KELLYN KAVANAGH (they/he) is a chaotic demon’s spawn based out of the Fraser Valley. Their work has been featured in Nineveh’s Cinema, Zapta, The Cascade, and CIVL Radio. Away from their writing desk, they can be found exploring the endless hiking trails around BC, and trying (and failing) to figure out kickflips at the skatepark.

KALEB SUEDFELD lives on the unceded territory of the Sto:lo peoples. He is a BSW student at UFV, and works with houseless communities in the area. Dread about anthropogenic extinction makes its way into everything he does, including poetry, which often explores the appalling nature of human routine.

SKYLAR FRANCES (they/them) is a queer, trans, directionless millenial who has always been drawn to words about the beautiful mundanity of the human condition.

ISSUE 001 | FALL 2023

THE LOCAL CRYPT

ISSUE 001 | FALL 2023

crypt keeping

01 Kellyn Kavanagh | note from the crypt keeper 31 Skylar Frances | a note from the mortician

poetry

07 Noah Johnson | diagnosis of dionysus 13 Chandy Dancey| POSSESSION 19 Noah Johnson | Androphenia 21 Kaleb Suedfeld | light discovers all 23 Tyler Joshua | an ode to depression personified 30 Skylar Frances | rebirth

short fiction

03 Adriel Brandt | the house 09 Catherine Friesen | doe 15 Adriel Brandt | A Lübeck Nativity 25 Kellyn Kavanagh | these hallowed grounds

visual art

14 Cosmo Atkins | memento mori 17 Kirsten Fleming | carmilla

THE LOCAL CRYPT

by kellyn kavanagh

E

ver since my childhood, I’ve been enthralled by fear.

I sought after stories soaked in the darkness in whatever contexts I could find them in. Had someone asked me at the time why I was so keenly interested in things related to horror; death, mummification, ghosts, ghouls, creatures, and killers, I would have struggled to answer as coherently as I could now. Having been raised devoutly in the Christian church, I would most likely have said I was arming myself with the tools of righteousness, and the knowledge of evil to defend myself against the legions of Satan when they arrived on my doorstep. That answer may still be true, in one way or another, but certainly not how I might’ve imagined it back then.

I was diagnosed with both Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) when I was still too young to retain memories. The clearest memory I do have, was one day sitting in front of a doctor and being asked out of nowhere, “How does it feel being autistic?” I was at a loss for words. For the majority of my early childhood, I remember taking regular medication that was switched up from time to time. While my memories pre-diagnosis may be spotty at best, one feeling always remained consistent; I felt like an outsider among my peers. I didn’t make friends as easily as my classmates. The friends I did make tended to drift away after a little while, others just outright dumped me as their friends. Little explanation was given in these scenarios beyond statements like “You’re weird” or “You’re just not cool enough.” The friendships I made that I managed to retain for longer periods of time also tended to be with other neurodivergent folks, or at least those who shared similar interests. Coincidentally, some of my favourite stories at that time centred on or at least featured characters who lived on the margins of society, or had experiences which alienated them from others. Works by Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and Shirley Jackson were amongst my favourites. Films such as Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow”, and Henry Selick’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” defined my personality from time to time.

While my social difficulties seceded over the years, my love for horror remained constant. As soon as I was old

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enough to have a television set with a PlayStation for internet access in my bedroom, I’d stay up late after my parents were asleep to watch frowned-upon content like “Saw”, “Friday The 13th”, “The Evil Dead”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, and pretty much anything else that combined the horror classification and an MPAA “R” rating (sorry, mom!)

Beyond the obvious shock and forbidden fruit appeal that lured me to the darkness, I found myself just as intrigued by what happened behind the camera, and beyond the pages of the stories that make up the horror genre. Classic horror films such as “Friday The 13th”, and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” were made on shoestring budgets and tight deadlines due to being considered studio risks. Society at the time, and to this day, still considers the horror genre as a pulpy and meritless form of entertainment. As a result, the genre has given rise to some extraordinary talent, such as Tom Savini and the late Wes Craven, who had to think far outside the box to have their stories told and depicted effectively. Interestingly enough, when these movies did come out, they became surprise hits in the movie theatres. People would gather in groups at the cinemas to watch the latest fright fests as a community. Folks daring each other to see how long they can last in a film before getting too scared.

I find it a form of injustice to the genre for people to expect horror to be innately scary. Part of the reason I love the genre so much is because it has genuinely helped me through some of the hardest moments in my life, and helped me muster up the courage to tackle the demons and monsters that have shown up in my card deck of lived experiences.

Stephen King’s “IT” and “Pet Sematary” were integral to my grieving process when my brother passed away. As a child, Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow” showed me that sometimes the things that make me feel weird and insecure about myself can also be my biggest strengths. Even stories that aren’t traditionally considered horror fit in well with the aesthetics I was drawn to. Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline” and Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” both come to mind. I found comfort in stories that dwelled in darkness as they provided me with a sense of catharsis and helped me see the lights at the end of each tunnel. In my loneliest days, horror stories and films

helped me feel a sense of understanding from someone else, a feeling of community. It’s incredibly reductive to base one’s judgement of a horror film or story exclusively on whether it is “scary” or not. Horror can make us laugh, cry, ponder, and in my experience, heal. I want this zine to reflect this ethic, and I am proud to say that this debut issue does, at least in my opinion, exactly that.

While I find it sad that so much of society struggles to accept horror for the beautifully creative genre it is, I find dwelling on it to be a fool’s errand. For as long as something exists to provoke and challenge its audience, there will be those who simply will not engage with said material regardless. Despite the barriers, lack of funding, and stigma, the genre thrives. Thanks to the passionate community of fans and creators alike who continue to support the books, films, albums, and other works of various types that continue to be produced.

A few weeks ago, I was reflecting on my journey as a neurodivergent person and horror fan. This project was born out of my passion for the horror genre and the community that shares my passion. Truthfully, when we first announced the zine and opened submissions, I wasn’t expecting much aside from somewhere to publish my own stories and the works of some close friends. However, almost immediately we began receiving submissions from total strangers and friends alike who share in the love I have for horror.

Thoughtful, profound, and creative works that I truly believe deserve the esteem of publication in more renowned and long-running collections and magazines than us. Seeing

the response from the community here both humbled me and helped heal the lonely inner child that still lives in my heart and soul. To be trusted with such incredible works from other local writers and artists is truly an honour, and I can’t wait to share with you all the stories contained herein.

To everyone who submitted, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It feels incredible to be surrounded by such talented and passionate writers and artists such as yourself and I can’t wait to see where this project goes in the years to come. If you’re a reader picking up this zine for the first time, thank you. I hope that the stories contained in this volume resonate within you and inspire you however you may need.

To all the contributors who have made this a possibility, I owe you my eternal gratitude. This really does feel like a dream come true. So without further adieu, I wish you a devilishly good time as you creep through the pages of this zine. I hope what you find here entertains you, provokes you, and perhaps sends a shiver through your spine a bit too late in the night.

Happy Halloween!

Sincerely, Kellyn Kavanagh Editor-In-Chief/Co-Founder

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02

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by adriel brandt We did not invite them, but they came.

They crawled into our gardens on all fours and dragged themselves onto our tables and stretched their bodies over our beds and buried their dead in our basements.

We did not invite them, but they came.

T

he place was desolate long before we arrived; one of countless corpses of infrastructure massacred in the financial crisis; left foetal: a single five-bed, three-bath affair erected in full finish at the end of a detached lane. When the economy revived, the city moved, as much as a dying city could, in another direction, and the place remained empty, a rich black pavement melting slowly into banks of dirt, and one perfect suburban home, its dark green lawn creeping wild and its siding turning yellow from the foundations. Alone on an abandoned hill once clear-cut for timber miles from the city, it eventually disappeared in the forgiving fingers of nature and was utterly forgotten, even by the desperate eyes of developers looking for scraps around a city defeated by municipal bankruptcy.

We didn’t use the house, at first. It was too sinister in its incongruity. We saw it through the trees before we came upon the dark strip of dirtied pavement; it was strikingly pale, its plastic f lanks whiter than anything for miles.

Without determination, we avoided the pavement, too, and walked up to the house through the underbrush. Wiping off a layer of grime, we peered through its windows into preserved perfection: furniture, carpet, real granite countertops, utterly untouched by time or hand. An exquisite bedroom, alien through the verdigris of dirt, its linens pure and its pillows sitting so lightly against the headboard they could have just been placed by careful hands. Yet, we set up our camp on the lawn, unconsciously fearful of the disconsonant building but unwilling to leave it behind. Our dun-green tent and aged blue tarp, strung from the back porch, sat beside the house like ugly, withered children, and we were fleas scuttling between them and the wilderness.

The young woods were lush and populous, forgetful in their youth of the clearcutting that leveled their ancestors.

We were fed on wild herbs and berries, damp mushrooms,

and small game snatched from their paths by clever devices.

One day, we found a patch of potatoes: small and wrinkled, but healthy: the grandchildren of a discarded father, the progeny of mysterious compost. We harvested them all and brought them to our camp. There was a space behind the house, a twenty foot square defined by pale cedar planks overgrown by moss: a garden plot. The potatoes were our first crop. We cleared a corner of the box for them, tore out the wild growth and turned over rich, black soil. We didn’t need to dig holes; the soil was so soft we could push the vegetables through it like it was snow. Our arms became black to the elbows. We planted wild herbs next, and a stalk of raspberry.

Soon, twenty feet square was not enough; the next year, we harvested from a box fifty feet wide: potatoes, nettles, mint, mustard, raspberries and blueberries. We contrived our traps along the borders of the pavement and rarely wandered beyond its end.

We needed more. We crept up to the fringe of the city. One of us found a tomato plant in a steel bucket and a five-gallon cask planted with herbs: rosemary, thyme, and sprouted onion. One of us found a foot-long trough planted with strawberries. No one found us, and we cleared m ore space for our garden and laid new planks for its border. We were satisfied; we had enough. Everything grew, white roots plunging into black soil hungrily. We imagined the roots of the raspberry curling around those of the blueberry, sending a tendril to caress the eyes of the potato. A network of searching fingers, pale as milk; a sprawling cobweb of long, white arms.

Eventually, we moved into the house. We bathed. We had long ago found the exterior faucet, but we were not intimate with its water. It had felt our lips and was parted against our tongues, but now we submitted our bodies to it. Earth like old skin sloughed from our hands, and our thighs, and our backs. The water found every part of us. It touched us cold and clear and fell from us tepid, dark, and heavy. We were heavy when we left the water, though we didn’t know why.

We were comfortable. We even scrubbed our feet.

We found the key in a plastic box in the doorway; it cracked open to a single blow. The door handle was cold and gleamed golden. Our clean hands belonged on it, wrapped around it naturally. Inside, it was quiet. With the door closed

THE LOCAL CRYPT

04

behind us, completely silent. It fit back into the frame with an abrasive thump and everything stilled. Our breath should have fogged; it was the stillness of predawn over a landscape of fresh snow, when the moon still reigned in a clear sky just turning royal. But it was a close stillness, too: of two bodies in a dark tent. The vinyl flooring was just warm enough under our feet, but the carpet was truly lovely. We could not bring ourselves to sit on the sofas. Not yet. We slept on the carpet, naked. Our limbs glowed in the moonlight from the window.

They came in the morning. Finally, the pavement felt the press of rubber; it had forgotten it. At last, the house was remembered. It was regarded. They trooped around it with flashlights, bent to survey the yellowing panels, scuffed at the concrete walk. They peered in through the windows, but we were not seen. We had locked the door behind us; we belonged here. They did not enter the house. Inside, we grew hungry. Our garden was just wilderness to them, weeds grown over the lawn.

The tarp was torn down. The tent was trampled underfoot and its contents scattered. A guzzling generator roared to life, feeding electricity to a floodlight. It superseded the dawn, overwhelmed it when it came. It drove away the morning and would drive away the wildlife.

We watched through the faceted glass beside the door as they walked back and forth over the pavement, shining little red lights at different angles into the woods. They put their memories on notepads held in their hands. We dared not go to our garden. They were collecting the items from our scattered tent into rippling, dark bags. We grew hungrier still, and thirsty. They planted a corrugated office in the center of the lane, slid it off a truck, and now they owned the pavement. We had never stepped on it; it never belonged to us. It had a high window that faced us. We were invisible behind the glass; they did not see us. We went hungry all day; we did not move from the window, where we watched them walk and dig and sample and plan. The city must be alive again: there must be money in its veins. When night fell, most of them left and activity ceased. Almost, the lane was lost again in the woods, but white light dripped from the high window in the iron of the portable office and the generator continued to scream, blasting the beam of the floodlight deep into the underbrush.

We stepped out the back door on clean, soft feet. This was our home. We went first to our garden, where we gorged ourselves. Our harvest was diminished this year; we ate nearly all of it that night; we needed to refresh the soil before our next planting. The light offended us, so we tore it down.

They came from the corrugated iron box to investigate. We

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made it look like wild animals, and then stole into the office and tore it apart, too. In the dead part of the night, when all was silent, we tended our garden. They would come again in the morning: they did come, but they didn’t find us.

They crawled around the house frantically, pawing at the windows, but none of the panes were broken. The door was still locked. They did not come in. They lifted the generator upright and replaced the floodlight bulb and a truck came to take the office onto its back. More lights were placed, at intervals down the lane. They stalked around the house, pressed into the woods, then left. The whole lane roared until it shook and the floodlights battled the day’s sun and destroyed the hiding places of shadows.

When night fell, it fell only to the tops of the floodlights’ metal stems. The pavement was radiant and the fringes of the forest were frozen in white light. A car crept up from the access road and crouched at the base of the lane, its headlights on but insignificant.

Our feet were unfamiliar with the forest floor, but we weren’t seen. We were hungry; the enormity of the light and noise was too much for the squirrels and the rabbits, and our traps were exposed unto invisibility in the floodlights’ glare. We stumbled down the hill and hunted in the dark.

Our bodies were too bright and drank the moon too readily, but we were successful. For the first time, we laid the table. Silverware was placed with perfect silence upon linen napkins, our courses were dressed upon soft, white ceramics. We sat upon cushioned chairs that wrapped around our buttocks and held them like lovers. Our cold dinner grew hot inside us, lulling us to sleep, and we discovered that the chairs were nothing compared to the sofas: we lay upon them naked and full and disappeared in their softness as if we weighed nothing: as if we were nothing. We slept deep into the next day, and did not feel hungry when we woke. We hardly heard the generators.

The veins of industry are thin and crooked. Soon, the generators were turned off and the floodlights were dismantled. We had never been seen. The ruddy hands of the city lifted from the hill, where they had only rested without working, and returned to itself. Once again the hill, and the house, and the lane, were forgotten.

We grew old and fat in the house, yellowing like its flanks.

Once, we let the garden fallow, turned its soil, fed it. We planted it the next year, but forgot it in the summer and it grew and blossomed and shed its enormous fruits onto soil so rich and so black that no shadows could fall on it. For a time, we still hunted game, though the squirrels and rabbits never returned to the woods around the pavement. We rolled

down the hill, always at night, and forgot our hunting by the morning, except that we were full and sleepy. Sometimes we woke up in the middle morning and heard the roaring of generators. We would open our eyes, and for a moment they would be washed in the brilliance of the floodlights, but then we heard only our breathing and saw only the slowly aging house around us. Our feet, heavier and heavier, wore down the carpets. We collapsed into the sofas until they grew stiff, and then gave lumps to the mattresses. The silverware shone always where it was laid, for we never used it.

Eventually, we never left the house. If we left the house, it would collapse. It was old, and we were old; we held each other up. The wilderness pressed against the siding, trying to push over the walls, and clattered against the windows, wanting to break them. The garden was feral, wilder than the rest: it grew unrecognizable weeds and plants too large for their natures. Tomatoes burst against the porch and sprayed wet seeds across it. Strawberry creepers grew into the siding and peeled it away from the concrete and plastic and planking. We could not go outside to stop it. If we left, the garden would pull the house down and nothing would remain.

We crawled into the attic. We were starving; we were enormous, hollow husks, containing worlds and existences of emptiness; we were dying. The garden could not reach us up here, though we could feel its fingers tapping against the wall beneath us. We imagined, blindly, its reaching arms, livid green and tipped with hands of a dripping, deep red.

It was the bodies in the soil: it was their souls in the giant, hairy leaves of the potatoes, it was their minds in the incessant tapping at the windows, it was their fingertips in the sharp fangs beneath the leaves of the raspberry. They had come, but we had not invited them: they had invited us, and we had come.

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by noah johnson Socially acceptable poison, free to indulge in at nineteen, although the poison was gently poured down my pupils by television screens when I was five.

Synonyms with love, friends, and community; propaganda of how it all works together played in the movies.

Boys being boys and myself being whatever they told me to be studied the craft, made models out of cantaloupe during sleepovers.

Passion filled their eyes like a fire slowly consuming an apartment building.

He would show me how it is done, all men must know because all men want poisoned souls.

Information slowly stuffed down my throat, until I learned to breathe with lockjaw.

Soon I could recall all the positions, tastes, brands, and models before I was able to buy my first bottle or legally become stained like red wine.

All I knew was the admiration of the colors outside, the font choices and their style.

Socially acceptable poison forced upon me unreluctantly.

My reality shattered when I realized Dionysus did not make me a satyr.

I did not crave the act of being drunk off another’s body.

I did not want to continuously drink poison.

The lack of attraction confused my companions as they attacked my naked body with nonconsensual fists, their actions saying, they can change my mind, as if the option existed.

Socially acceptable poison fueled socially acceptable consequences.

Socially acceptable poison reported as more natural than water, men weep in reverse consuming poison like their fathers.

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Hiding under excuses of drunk actions, Jekyll and Hyde.

While my demons are not the lustful kind, their demons are made mockery of but not confined; roaming freely as socially acceptable beings.

Their eyes fixated and dissociate, cursing people into objects, their hands break free from their side and start to run their “objects” batteries dry, their mouths start falsely refuting instead of apologizing as the people scream in terror, the men’s legs stand firm, refusing to leave and they all act collectively individually blame free, guilt free, forgiven by society.

Socially acceptable Gods of self-definition branded in their self-worth as the victim, there in the shadows, there in the light, lying in mirrors saying there are no monsters in sight.

Monsters among us, described like Dionysus using socially acceptable poison, successfully killing us.

THE LOCAL CRYPT

08

“Did you see that?”

Harper and Simon are driving down a dark, serpentine road toward the cabin they rented for the week. There are no streetlights, no reflectors in the centre of the asphalt—all that guides them is the narrow glare of light from the high beams and, far in the distance, the fading glow of another car’s brake lights. Simon is in the passenger seat, staring wide-eyed into the night, as though this will help him see beyond the shield of darkness that circles their car and the miles of forests in every direction.

Harper did see it: a doe, lying beyond the reach of the car as though dragged just enough not to be hit again, her downy fur sleek and dark. Along the road, a stream of blood and entrails gleaming in the headlights. Harper thinks of how this describes her and Simon’s marriage: mangled. Cracked open.

They married last spring after five years together, for no real reason other than to say they did it. Neither of them particularly believed in marriage and here was the proof of it: driving seven hours north to a remote cabin in hopes that clear air and silence, a glistening lake, will restore what they had before—before they bought the rings. Before they spent too much on a party neither of them cared about.

And here they are again, spending more money instead of staying home for the week, when staying home would likely give them the same outcome. Before the trip, Harper calculated what they’d be losing, more spent on gas and food than they would have otherwise. But she was used to saving—before Simon, Harper and her roommate shared a one bedroom apartment close to downtown, where they bought day-olds from the bakery below them and split the internet bill with their neighbours.

When she first moved in with Simon, to a small house in the suburbs, things had been easier. She’d been able to quit one of her jobs and spend more time on her music. He always told her not to worry. Lately, she’d wondered—wondered if

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they weren’t in some sort of trouble. But she didn’t want to think about that, not when they were preparing for a trip that could change something. Instead, she thought ahead to what she’d have to cut out; and it would be her cutting out.

That was always how it went: never Simon. Never Simon emptying the dishwasher. Never Simon washing the car.

Never Simon staying up late, waiting for his love to come home, when he knew full well where they were: hands groping for another body in a dark corner of a club where you only leave once it’s closed, your shoes sticky with God knows what, enough cocaine in your system that you don’t sleep for three days afterward.

Never Simon.

It’s not that Harper doesn’t love him—she does, in the way you love a stuffed animal you’ve had since childhood, or a distant great aunt.

She does love him.

It’s just that she’d give anything to see him squirm once in a while, for him to feel something other than boredom when she asks him to sweep the floors, to wash the dishes from the dinner she made, to come home early enough that she can say goodnight to him.

She’d love to see him sweat. She’d love to see him feel something.

And sometimes, when she’s lying in bed at night, waiting for him to come home, she thinks how nice it would be to leave, to pack a suitcase and walk out the front door; leave it open behind her. Not leave a note. This was never the life she wanted for herself—she could sell her old guitars, drain her bank account, scrape together enough to buy a used car, in cash, and vanish.

Harper’s always wanted to vanish, ever since she was a little girl. As a child, she acted out scenarios with her Barbies where one would go missing: she’d hide her behind the couch, or in the kitchen cupboards, or throw her out the window, yarn tied around her waist so she was dangling, always

by catherine friesen

dangling, until the other Barbies would stop their search: turn and trace their paths back through the woods, switch their flashlights off, get into their cars and drive away. If they had flashlights, that is. If they had cars.

Harper’s mom would invariably find this Barbie hanging and reel her back in, set her back in the toybox until next time.

Harper is deep in thought—about Barbies; about vanishing—when Simon throws his arm out in front of Harper’s chest. It takes a moment for her to register that he’s yelling her name.

“Harper, stop!”

She slams on the brakes. In front of them, illuminated by the glow of their headlights, is a doe. She’s bigger up close than Harper would have imagined, and just a few feet of blank air between the car and her, her dark eyes blinking into the light. And then Harper blinks and the doe is gone, bounding off into the blackness, not a trace of her there.

Simon doesn’t say anything, breathing heavily in the passenger seat. He lowers his arm, sets it back at his side.

Harper keeps driving, more alert this time.

Within ten minutes she sees the turnoff for their cabin and takes it, sharper than she would have liked. Simon grumbles from the passenger seat. She takes the next corner even sharper.

And then they’re pulling into their home for the next week. They’re unloading the car; they’re hefting bins up to the porch. Harper fumbles for the key in the darkness and eventually gets it, flicking on the lights. Inside: one room, a futon off to one side with kitchen counters hugging the other. A table and two chairs in the centre. One corner with a wood stove. All around: windows looking out into the dark, showing nothing.

They don’t unpack. Simon pulls the futon out and lies down, his heavy breathing soon filling the room. Harper stays up, pulling one of the kitchen chairs over by the

woodstove. She piles newspaper and kindling into the stove.

She lights a match, then sits down. From here, if it were daytime, she knows she could see trees, the lake, too. Right now, all she sees is a billowing sheet of night; not even the stars are out to cast opaque shadows through the woods.

She sits there until the fire burns down and the chill of the night wraps around her once more. Then she goes to bed, pulling the blankets from Simon, who’s wrapped himself tight. He groans, but doesn’t stir.

Harper wakes the next morning to an empty cabin and the sound of wood cleaved by an axe. She looks out the window and sees Simon, axe raised high above his head before bringing it down on the wood. Harper listens to the rhythmic chopping of the wood, and for a moment dreams of locking the door, of pushing open one of the windows and sliding her body through, of landing silently on the deck outside. Of walking into the woods, taking careful steps to avoid the crackle of leaves underfoot.

Instead, she turns back to the room and puts away their clothes, their groceries, pulling bread and apricot jam from the bin and setting them on the counter. No toaster, so she spreads jam over cold bread, shoves one piece into her mouth, and then another. By the time she’s on her third piece, Simon is back inside. He kicks his boots off near the door and settles into the futon with a book he’s been trying and failing to read for four months.

Harper takes this as a sign and, without saying more than a goodbye, slips her own boots on, closing the door behind her on the way out.

Outside, the world is ablaze with colour. Driving in at night, she hadn’t seen the shining gold leaves of the aspen, closing in from all directions. Then there’s the ginger grass, the ruby rosehips; in the not so far distance, the sparkling sapphire of the lake, where Harper can see three boats dotting the surface. Above, thin wisps of clouds against a turquoise sky.

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Everything is silent.

She walks down the cabin’s steps and takes a right, toward a break in the trees, away from the lake. As she walks she feels the cool air on her skin, the crunch of leaves underfoot; the swish of grass as it parts on either side of her. When she reaches the border where the trees meet the grass, she steps over, uninhibited. She’s met by dappled sunlight falling in front of her on a wide path, guiding her way. Above, a soft wind gusts through the leaves.

Harper walks for some time, noticing the dewed ferns, the rocks cemented in the dirt. She sees killdeer darting between trees and a chickadee, no longer than her little finger, perched on the side of an aspen like an acrobat. And somewhere far off: the call of a raven. The only sound reflecting through the woods.

As she walks on, the trees grow denser, peeling white bark of the aspen closing in like a dream holding you from all sides. At one point Harper reaches her hand out, her fingers grazing the bark; smooth. Cold. She pulls her hand back to her side and keeps walking.

Just when she thinks the trees can’t get any denser— they’re close on all sides now, the path reduced to a narrow lane of dirt—the world opens up before her in one great swoop: a clearing, no more than thirty feet across.

Chartreuse grass dotted with dew and late season wildflowers, aster, she thinks, glinting at the edges. On all sides: the white bark of the aspen, their canary leaves canopied above, circling around that turquoise sky.

But her eyes don’t linger on this: they come back to the centre, where a doe stands, grazing. Her head is lowered, but her eyes are on Harper, who’s standing just inside the clearing, trying to be as still as possible, trying to remember if it’s deer that will rush you, or just moose. She thinks she heard that somewhere; she knows she may be wrong.

While she’s thinking this, the doe keeps eating, her eyes trained on Harper. After a while, Harper sits down—slowly, as not to disturb the doe. She feels the dew soaking through the fabric of her jeans. She wishes she wore something other than jeans.

But she watches, all the same.

Above her and the doe, the sky remains that deep, unsettling turquoise; nothing like you’d get back home.

After a while, the doe raises her head to look at Harper. At first Harper looks away, but then, when she realizes the doe is still watching, she stares back, into two shining, black pools.

Harper is thinking of the black night they drove through to get here; she’s thinking about the nights back home, light pollution pooling at the edges. And then she’s thinking of

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the dark feeling she gets on a Friday night when it’s past ten and she knows, somehow, that Simon won’t be home until the early hours, that he’ll slide his shoes off at the door and lie down on the couch. He says he does this not to wake her; she thinks this isn’t true.

It’s while she’s thinking of this—those dark, lonely nights—that a phrase comes into her head, one she’s sure she’s heard before, but can’t place where: Which one of your lives is this?

She’s turning the phrase over in her mind, touching all the smooth edges of it, feeling how they dip and swirl in her, when she realizes she’s been speaking it out loud; she hears her own voice echoing through the clearing: “Which one of your lives is this?”

Harper thinks the doe will run off, but she continues watching her intently, those black eyes trained right on Harper’s face. And then she blinks; the doe is gone.

Harper stands and, brushing grass from her jeans, turns and heads back the way she came.

For the next two days, Harper rises early, long before Simon is awake, and makes her way down the same path, seeing the same dewed ferns, the same killdeer; hearing the same raven. Above her, the same aspen blown by the same wind. And then the clearing, and the doe, her black eyes once more on Harper as she sits, back against a tree, watching.

They stay like this for hours, the turquoise sky above never changing, never darkening or dimming, not until Harper rises from her spot on the wet grass, turning back to the cabin for the evening. Which one of your lives is this dances through her each time, filling her with something she can’t explain: a rising feeling in her chest—expansion.

When she arrives back at the cabin in the evenings, Simon is invariably reading, or chopping wood, or sitting on the porch, staring into the distance. There are dishes in the sink and clothes across the floor. Most evenings, they sit in silence, watching the sun dip behind the aspens, the leaves darkening with each passing minute. Harper thinks of how she loves him, or how she did love him. She thinks of before—she thinks of endings. When night has fallen they light a fire and eat, listening to the crackle of the wood and the nearby call of owls, their wings silent overhead.

On the third night, Harper is woken by a sound outside their window. With Simon still sleeping, she rises from bed, pulling a blanket around her shoulders. She stands in the middle of the cabin, in the coal black night, listening. After a moment: the swish of grass as something passes through it.

Easing the door closed behind her, flashlight in hand, Harper stands on the front porch and clicks the light on,

sending the thin beam of light out into the night. The light tunnels through the darkness, only illuminating one piece at a time, a scene through a shifting pinhole.

You don’t know how dark the woods are until you’re there.

She sends the light out into the grass, moving slowly from one side to the other. About halfway across the yard, the light catches on something: two spindly, dun-coloured legs and a white chest; fine, sleek hair. Moving the light further up, careful not to spook who she already knows is there, the rest of the doe is lit up, spotlighted against the silhouettes of trees. Again the doe is staring straight at her, her eyes darker than the night around her. This time, she takes a step closer to Harper, and another; haltingly, as though she’s just learning to walk. As though she’s just coming to life.

Harper stays where she is, her feet rooted to the deck.

Behind her, she hears Simon stir, then settle.

In a moment the doe has crossed the yard and stands just below the stairs, only a few feet from Harper. By now she’s lowered the flashlight to the ground, so that light pools at her feet. It casts just enough that she can still see the doe, so close to her, her eyes imploring her to— Which one of your lives is this?

This time, when it comes to her, it’s not her casting the thought out into her mind; it’s coming from outside her, from someone else—and then a gripping sensation, her lungs receding into themselves. She closes her eyes, willing herself to calm down. She thinks of all the times before this that she felt happy: playing guitar on stage in a dive bar in some back alley. Nights, before, when she could fall asleep easily and wake up rested, not having spent the night waiting up.

Taking herself for coffee in the afternoon, just because she can, just because she doesn’t have to be home for anyone but herself.

Then, the thunk of a hoof on wood, and another. The doe is climbing the steps; she’s closing the space between them.

Harper can feel the soft feathering of the doe’s breath on her hands, her face. There’s the rustle of a body settling just inches from her; Harper swears she can hear the doe’s heartbeat.

And then, whispered in her ear: “Which one?”

Harper doesn’t think before she speaks; she’s not even conscious that she does speak. And yet, she answers: “The one where I go back.”

All at once, Harper is gasping, her lungs refilling with air as she reels backward on the deck. Her eyes fly open and immediately shut again, the bright gleam of day blinding her.

The flashlight, cracked and dark, lies on the deck.

The doe is gone. Harper scans the yard, but there’s no one around. Not even the killdeer swoop between the aspen; not even the raven rattles from close by.

Behind her, the door to the cabin stands open.

She turns and, picking up the broken flashlight, enters the room. Closing the door behind her, she moves to the kitchen and pulls three slices of bread from the cupboard, covering each in a thick layer of apricot jam. Afterward, she makes the bed, pulling the sheets up tight to the corners, wondering what she might do that day, and she thinks of home, of the apartment where her roommate waits for her. If she were there, they might walk down to the bakery, or might wander the streets, aimless and serene. And she thinks of the shows she has lined up, the dive bars, the crowds—how she’ll come home after they’re done, filled with joy.

Harper licks jam off the end of the knife, then washes her breakfast dishes in the small sink. As she’s drying her hands, she thinks of how kind it was for her parents to rent this cabin for her for the week, how they told her she deserves it.

How she works so hard. Harper knows she loves them, bright and vivid, more than she’s loved anyone before.

And then Harper thinks of the lake, just beyond the trees at the edge of the yard, where she might spend the day. The other day she saw boats dotting its surface, and wonders if there’s somewhere she can rent one, drift over the sapphire surface. It’s so blue this time of year; it’s so peaceful.

She’s so glad she came.

THE LOCAL CRYPT

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by chandy dancey

the day you found my body, i shook off the dew and desolation that had collected on my death. my dear, you screamed and disembodied me from my last breath. the day you found my body, my memory transcended being the miss in missing persons to becoming the priestess that fed off feverish prayers that your daughter not meet my fate. but you should know by now i am not a god of restraint. the day you found my body, this victim of violence was vindicated. my spirit ceased to roam, and the ritual was complete. you were the invocation, the instrument drawn to my coven. so let me bend you to my will, and may our work begin. the day you found my body, recall that you carved runes into my battered bones with a rust encrusted blade. you sacrificed blood on the altar of my rot and gave your consent by laying your body across my pentagram. you are the conduit, my disciple of death, but you are not blameless.

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together, we will lead a war you, the mouth to indict me, the dry grass to serve as tinder you, the fingers with the match me, the forest igniting with fire you, crying with hands to the sky me, salting the earth with my ashes, and revelling in divine destruction. the day you found my body, it was already too late. if it wasn’t the lick of flames i would’ve manifested malignancy, blinded crops with blight, dripped diseases into groundwater. i would’ve made them look at my bloat and repent. there’s a certain power in being a bag of bones, of being on your knees. so don’t shed tears in vain, servant of my spirit, because blessed are the hands that deliver justice even if they’re covered in blood.

memento mori cosmo atkins

Linocut

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by adriel brandt

S

ometimes, when the city was empty of soldiers and he was feeling distant from his god, the prostitute would visit her. She had nothing with which to recompense him— her work in the clay pits hardly filled her own stomach—but she knelt before him after sex and listened to him deliver mass. He would weep, each tear a confession, but his voice never wavered. She took the eucharist from his steady hand without looking at his face, and later would pretend to sleep while he struck himself with the rope of his belt and sobbed.

He was always gone before morning.

He was a disgraced novice, she knew, but he never spoke about his past to her. Maybe he did with other clients, who asked for the touch of the divine in their couplings. With her, it was never an act. It was always for him. When he wept, she liked to think it was for his past, the severance of his person from the holy womb before he had even drawn out the umbilical, for he smiled on the streets and his flirting was somehow pure, even with the soldiers who passed through fresh from war. His tears were memories, glittering lamentations, when he cried during the Latin chants that hovered in the still air of her home—confessions, still, but ancient, wordless ones he would never understand the sin of.

She had given birth to six children in her time, and it had been years since she would see their adult faces in the labourers around her. Now, they rested in her dreams only as she knew they had been, blood and dirt on their tiny faces.

But she knew their stillness in her dreams was not the same as it was then; now, they slept. Before their images faded in the mornings, sometimes, she made herself imagine the life of their own dreams; she would enter their eyelids and walk in the paths of their consciousnesses. For a moment, in wan morning twilight, she walked in the colour of her children.

The prostitute always came in her quickly. She believed the stories, that she had left her own orgasm behind with her fertility, and did not resent him. She would enjoy the bliss on his face, and his eyes would open to her small smile. He said it was the smile Mary gave the Christ child, and he would look above her head to find her halo. She almost saw it reflected in his eyes, this time, the clear windows shimmering with joy before they shed their burdens of old questions.

It was early November, and the air was dry as bone. The

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clay pits were operating inefficiently, the strongest labourers tasked with carrying water to those forming bricks in the place of the stadtgraben, which was hardly a trickle. Even the hands of those not working the clay were cracking, dusted white with dead skin. She pulled clay from the walls, her nailless hands numb to the cold earth. Her first activity of the day was always a balm, the cool slime of clay coating fissured skin; but she could not get the clay from those cracks no matter how long she soaked and washed them at dusk, and overnight she felt the clay dry. It stretched her skin, tearing it. The seeping blood formed its own bandages that she shed in flexed fists every morning.

A sudden pain in her middle distracted her from her hands on a Monday in mid-December. Yesterday had been the second Sunday of Advent. She bent and gripped herself around until it passed. From her stomach, it pounded in her head, then washed downwards like a seeping rain until it left her toes into the earth. She straightened, gathered more clay, slapped it onto the wheelbarrow beside her. She rested for a moment, then, with the memory of the pain, and watched her neighbour add his clay to the barrow before a labourer trundled it to the brickmakers.

Over the rise, she could see the walls of the church, already more impressive than the old structure. Churchmen bragged of its plans, and workers made loose by drink claimed it would have the highest vault in the world. None of that mattered to her. The pain gone, she turned back to the pit wall.

She dreamed of her children again that night, but they were not lying in the shallow grave behind the house this time, in the single tiny trough they all shared in the distorted perception of her sleep; overlaid yet separate, they always lay in the dirt and dreamed. This time, they hovered in her mind.

Their tiny bodies together still occupied the same space, but this space was nothing but light—a fluid, warm light that held her babies in substance like the softest hands, fingerless so there was nothing to prod or poke. Hands of light. She woke up with the vision upon her eyes, its sensations tickling her skin. Before it faded, her body soft and relaxed, she reached her consciousness through her children’s eyelids—

The city was burning, and strange men and women wailed through its streets in halos of fire. Stone popped and cracked in the heat of it, and tongues of fire licked down from the sky. She could not tell if it had ever been day, here: the heavens were depths of impure black made profoundly dark by the raging fires beneath. The Trave boiled, but candle-people melting like wax leapt into it to douse their skin. Their screams sang in triptych with the disharmonic hissing of extinguishment and searing flesh. The highest flames of all leapt from towers she did not recognize but knew to be the pinnacles of her church; even from this distance, staring dry-eyed through layers of infernal chaos, she could see the prints of her palms inside the clay of its bricks. She felt the draw of her arms for each handful of clay represented in its enormous height.

Drops of blood floated from her fractured skin and she began following them unburning to their pairs inside the walls of the church. She stepped through every element alike, wood and stone and air and fire, her movement ephemeral, but each of her steps was firm upon the earth beneath the city. Gusts carrying the breath of ten-thousand apocryphal dragons did not stir her ragged clothes; the tumbling bricks of a building, each one glowing with heat, fell through her; yet her feet pressed tactilely at every new step that took her closer to the church. She passed through flailing bodies and saw, for a moment, in her periphery, the boiling of their blood and the dissolution of their innermost parts into fire. Black shapes like carrion birds flickered among the depthless ceiling, hovering above the corpse of the city—they were their own shadows, for the furious light beneath them did not reach them.

She walked up the stairs to the church doors and did not slow for them. Inside, the air was corporeally cool, but when she looked up, the vault was made of fire. She looked to her left and her right, and the pillars of the naves were pillars of fire. A breath of wind gently pushed away the heat from her periphery, then its intake drew her forward like a small gesture. Shattered glass melted into mosaic before her feet. A woman sat in a pew near the altar, her back turned and her hair covered by a blue hood. Every other pew was an ember, motes of fire to dissolve at a touch of wind. This woman sat

on a bench of ancient wood. It was cool to the touch as she approached her, laid her hands on its back and looked over.

The woman was faceless within her hood, but in her smooth long hands lay a baby far too small, sleeping. She knew at once it was her baby just as she knew it was sleeping and not dead, though it was utterly still upon the woman’s hands.

Though blood was seeping through her fingers, she saw now, thick blood and rank effluvia, dropping more than dripping to the flagstones of the floor. The woman lifted the too-small child, said, “I found him in the bricks.” For a moment, she felt the weight of the child in her hands, feather-light, almost an antimass drawing upwards, and then— She stumbled out of the house, dark blood creeping around her whitened knuckles and dropping thickly to the earth of her barren farm. She was unconscious of the distance to the pits, a matterless length of space folded by her fugue. She did not remember the burning city and its candle-people, nor the woman upon the unburned pew. Her head was somehow empty of substance and full of turmoil, and she worked mindlessly until midday, when her midsection exploded in agony. The pain separated her consciousness from her body, and she watched as she walked to an unused arm of the pit, a dry corner where the clay had turned to soil. There, she lifted her skirts and squatted. The pain of the discharge was faint, to her, separated as she was, but it was still powerfully distinct. A profound emptiness filled her. She kneeled off to the side and observed the baby, exactly as it had been in the hands of the woman in the church. She knew that, now. A perfect, sleeping baby—far too small. Its form was defined by the dark blood and effluvia around it, already seeping into the thirsty, clayless dirt.

This child, she resolved, would not be buried in unconsecrated ground. This arm of the pit had been abandoned for lack of clay, but there was still some to be dug for and found—and she found it. She took the tiny body in hands full of clay and blood and formed a brick. She would carry this brick to the pile of others and it would look no different; she knew this. It would become part of the highest vault in the world, and it would consecrate the ground it rested in.

Until that ground was consumed in fire and flame.

THE LOCAL CRYPT

16

carmilla

by kirsten fleming Digital art

“ One of my favourite pieces of literature is the 1872 novella

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. If you haven’t read it, it’s an occult detective story about a sapphic vampire and it predates Dracula, so what more could you possibly want?

My inspiration for this was a panel from Whispering Woman

by Junji Ito, when Mitsu is whispering into Mayumi’s ear.

Seeing that panel reminded me of the relationship Carmilla has with Laura, her prey/love interest.”

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THE LOCAL CRYPT

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by noah johnson

I am not alone though the media insists I am.

They say it is all in my head, excuses for attention his lust filled eyes, suffocating hands, his one goal in mind demanding to be still like the object I am.

I am not alone, though some days I feel isolated barricaded, nails painted to divide myself from him.

Still, my truth is skin and bones as he starves me from human connection.

My body is see-through seen through his intentions abandoning me in his closet space as spiders crawl and entangle themselves with my thoughts of dread.

His left-hand penetrates and attempts nothing to stop the spiders crawling within.

Unclean fingernails scrape my brain in a way, I envy chalkboards and my plea that I am not alone, is met with cobwebs.

I am not alone, though the patriarchy says it is abnormal to feel androphobic.

Monsters with mouths bigger than their eyes saying opinions like they are common sense, close minded, anger that combusts callously conjoining into mob mentality, abusing facts supported by fallacies, parasites, paraphrasing headlines to support their power-hungry fantasies.

Beasts often with two heads that both do not believe I exist as a person.

Maybe, I am alone.

He says my soul is corrupt, that I have already sinned a mantra to excuse the beatings as righteous.

Twisted affirmations that sound louder than my screams as he tears the clothes off my bone riddled body and drags me into his closet, boys will be boys.

The door is left open as he leers over my bare skin draped on bones scraps away my identity as I am blamed for it, walks away, announcing proudly that I am alone.

As I become familiar within the damp grotesque space I know I am not alone, watching the other skeleton like bodies in his closet decay.

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by kaleb suedfeld

Terror Stand trembling, child’s back chiaroscuro lit, Little feet in limen planted, two worlds The clash-point, where black absorbs the lambent glow All-encompassed unlit pitch, into nothingness.

Stared at, widened eye of soul unstained, Abyss, the churning primal lake, culture-filled With creeping fish – flesh split and twisted limb Trope-teeth, under-bed chittering glimpses.

Pushed forth, taller hands sends child to their place, Day await, under covers cowering, Feeling ‘cross an arm, something brushing soft; It seethes, watching out from the closet slats.

The hollow nights, child hunting sleep, Insomnia, into days blackness seep.

Wonder Sunk-eyed youth, gaunt from shaking child grew, Into the halls of fluorescence harshly scanned, Under scrutiny, under unkind light.

The day-dread, kind proportion loathing makes The Agony; when sun’s expectant Form is forthcoming not, calls the pointed tongues.

Moon-made relief, the silent siren’s call Of eerie night wrought the lesser fear: First shelter, comes incipient armour, Salves the burn of Summer’s ceaseless day.

Of hiding things a scarless trepidation, While shining knife cuts easy are perceived.

Unlit paths, into the glass darkly glance, Child, cross the lunar ‘scape, to dance, to dance.

Hope Years of joyous worship, calling rattled chants, Youth in dirty black runs, shying lights, ‘Gainst headstone, weary head rejuvenates.

Iron odysseys, steely snake distance crossed, Immortality in the alley glow; toxin-fed, pagan dance, hail Gods of decay.

Soft-furred beasts, in the rubble softly sleep

Gently biting, welcome blood; pay the tithe: Pounds of flesh, a costly shade across the sun.

Ceaseless hunt, for upset tower downward spiral Deeper led, escape the chasing light Unhiding wall writing carved sharp.

Dead fears at dead end, slashed by solid ray, Caught, dragged back before the terrors of the day.

Disillusion Out warm womb spat, gasping babe in husk rebirth, Earth’s crumble roads untold, concrete skin scrapes, Beaten, take the stick, answer klaxon call-to-work.

As snails crawls time, skimming off the hope, Now tall and grown, to glare accustoms eye, Single unity of one electric world, bright often, often dim, punch out, punch in, Lifetimes in the square. Bright disillusion, Moments of worship, better repressed, Long confused expanse exploring Heaven’s plastic self-perpetuation, Under midnight sun, living shrivelled.

Crawling life leashed, hand-cranking gears, Like plant for water, thirsty for child’s fear.

Agony Greying blur, never ending, Summer’s pass, Years march through heating world, between four walls, Naked bulb, ceiling sun, under kneeling.

One lit-up night that brought the rushing break, No more, instant of remembrance, dire wanting Child’s awe, another truth darkly hiding.

Desperation: Glassy light crush, palm-blood snuffed, Abyss admonish, repeating howl: ‘From raking claw, even, hope!’ – Silent dark.

A growl, then hear open Hell’s reddish glow?

No – just dawn-light’s brutal engines’ rev Grin sinks, tears dilute the blood. Mundane still.

Out the window peer; light discovers all, Real monsters in the endless, endless Sprawl.

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by tyler joshua thunderous uproar of emotion and her sabotaging psyche she’s rummaging through ferocious fear fracturing facades falling forward, fumbling through city streets slicked serendipity, searching sanity’s forgotten caverns she dances between raindrops, frolicking fields of fear desperately, drowning, failing to keep her horrific head above alabaster, wailing water her nauseous name secretly sprawled amongst brittle bones and ailing ashes she crawls to the sickening surface, sinking teeth, severing lifelines drenched, dripping in depression releasing reckless toxins, trampling budding blossoms ruthless wrath wrapping needless nooses around apathetic apologies

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THE LOCAL CRYPT

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T

he soil struggled to absorb the blood pooling over the forest floor. Each man fell to the ground with sickles wrapped tightly in their frozen grips. There were six of them in total, draining out like freshly cut pigs on the kill floor.

Grins of zealous ecstasy froze across their faces as their souls spilled over the hallowed grounds. Spiders, cockroaches, and centipedes crawled over their faces; they burrowed in their ears, the bloody gashes in their necks, and crawled under the lids of their cold, lifeless eyes. Their bodies would decay, espoused into the soil. Soon enough, they would return.

The Lord would greet them and make them new. The Lord would make them perfect. The new Earth awaited their stewardship. *** The ritual began three days ago, under the cover of darkness. The Lord arrived on a Sunday morning at the small woodland settler community of Respite in a blanket of blinding fog. The cold settled in while the townspeople sat quietly in the church pews, listening to Reverend Ewen preach on the gifts of humility and innocence.

“If we hold fast and faithful, and remain pure in our hearts and actions, the Lord will come again!” he shouted.

“The Lord will make us new!”

The worshipers, wrapped in the ecstasy of praising their god, failed to notice the continuing darkness past sunrise.

“Amen!” an old man named Simon whispered.

“Praise be to the mighty Jehovah,” Beatrice, Simon’s wife, agreed.

Once the sermon finally came to a close, the congregants took notice of the nighttime darkness permeated against the small breaks in the wall which acted as their windows.

Murmurs and confusion grew as they spoke amongst themselves longer than usual. Finally, two young boys opened the church doors to the sleeping woods outside. There was a pause as they silently determined who would trek out first.

Old man Simon jumped at the opportunity. Following his lead, they began retreating to their homes to break bread under a starless afternoon sky. Walking home presented trouble as the fog was so heavy and the sky so black that their lanterns struggled to guide them on their path. Many of the congregants gathered in front of the church doors in the center of the settlement. They speculated the cause amongst themselves.

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“Perhaps we’re at a higher elevation than we thought?” one gentleman inquired. “Maybe an unfamiliar custom of the mountainous weather?”

“Rubbish, the trail was flat the whole way through the woods when we came here,” another man jumped in to respond. “I reckon it’s an omen.”

“I’m afraid, mother,” one of the children said.

“Fear not, my child,” Father Ewen responded before the child’s mother could respond. “Tis merely the darkness before the brightest dawn.”

“Aye, Father,” old man Simon called back. “The Lord is with us! He has great plans for our prosperity.”

The reverend had taken notice of the especially lively congregation that morning. They were proud, devout people.

He wanted to uphold their spirits; he couldn’t entirely rationalize what was happening, but through his fervent biblical studies he’d come to the understanding that miracles thrived in the irrational. They’d come so far for deliverance; he’d be damned if he didn’t keep watch for the signs of God’s recognition of their faithfulness. *** The settlement was formed as a self-imposed exile from the growing city from whence they came. Modernization was coming to the interior, and with these new settlers, the region was becoming increasingly secular. The members of Shannipeake Falls Church had enjoyed relative peace and freedom from worldly influence over the last twenty years.

The community surrounding them was modest, but as the coastal cities grew and the foreign boats came to port from all corners of the earth, fear had wedged its way into the core of the congregation and permeated the pews. Panic over worldly influence and false religion soaked into the psychosocial fabric of the faithful community. Echoes of approaching evil reverberated from the ceiling and bled through the pages of their hymnals. Mornings that often began with songs of praise and thanks gave way to somber prayers for protection.

In times of uncertainty, reverend Ewen often looked to the wild, innocent freedom of the mountains surrounding the town of Shannipeake Falls. He felt with deep conviction that in order to get closest to The Father, one needed to take communion within the untouched regions of his creation; the land unsoiled by the indignity of human society, and

by kellyn kavanagh their irreparably sinful, wicked ways. What better way to commune with the Lord than to immerse oneself in His creation? The idea came to the reverend like a divine revelation. For the church to retain their purity from worldliness, and to connect more fully with Jehovah, they must retreat into the woods. Further validation fell upon the reverend when the church responded to his revelation with cries and cheers of freedom.

“So it shall be,” Ewen called out to his followers. “And the Lord said it was good.”

“Amen,” they said in unison.

The exodus into these woods was approximately a year ago. It took them a while to build a new community in the woods. They built simple structures for homes, and pooled whatever other resources they acquired into the construction of their tabernacle. When building the new community, the congregation took great care to use only what they needed from the woods. They made a small clearing for themselves in a heavily wooded area using the tools they had packed.

None of them had intentions of returning to society. *** The reverend helped the remaining congregants find their way back to their respective dwellings before heading back to his own. Not a smidgen of light was revealed, nor would it ever be revealed over the course of the next three days.

Chores still needed to be done, but none could be successfully accomplished in these conditions. Father Ewen sang hymns softly to himself as he trekked cautiously through the eerie cloud. The dampness clung to his robes and he attempted to pull them tighter for warmth. Father Ewen’s breath created such a wall of steam one could have mistaken him for smoking, a silly assumption; he was well known for being almost entirely without vices. Almost, he’d say, as no man is free of sin. Back in Shannipeake Falls, when no one was looking, Father Ewen would take swigs from a flask of whiskey. When they moved into the mountains, however, he chose to leave that poison behind.

Father Ewen kept walking in the direction where he thought his home was. He’d walked there countless times, especially at night, as he prayed over each home while they went to sleep. Walking back through the darkness, he focused his movements carefully, considering every step he took. Surely he would eventually stumble blindly into his

doorway. Each step took him further and further, closer to where he thought he was supposed to go.

Yet, the door never appeared. He turned back to see the path behind him knowing even that was a fool’s errand.

The fog closed in around him, the darkness swallowing all the light from his lantern.

“Hello?” he called out. “Can somebody help me?”

Silence was the only response.

“Hello?”

Either everyone had fallen asleep by now, or he wandered so far off as to be out of earshot.

Father Ewen took a couple more steps forward and then stopped again, listening. Just behind him, he’d thought he heard the sound of footsteps following closely. The sound of cracking leaves and snapping twigs alerted him.

“Is somebody there?”

“I’ve always been here, Ewen.”

The deep, disembodied voice came from beside Father Ewen. He turned rapidly to face the featureless silhouette of an incredibly tall, broad figure.

“Wh-wh-who are you?” Father Ewen stammered, his lantern trembling in the clutches of his now frost-bitten hand. The figure laughed.

“Ye of little faith,” he chuckled. “Don’t you know that I’m the one who led you here? The one who guided you through these woods?”

Father Ewen was choked, unable to respond. Could this be a trick of the devil? Had the abandonment of whiskey and the long journey to this new settlement begun driving him mad? Back at home, Father Ewen had seen the local wine bums resort to calling out psychobabble at passersby when the coin purse ran dry. The figure stepped forward as the father considered his sanity.

“It’s not the whiskey, Ewen. It’s me. We’re home.”

“Lord? Is this really you?”

“How can you call yourself a man of God and be of such infantile faith?” The figure placed its hand on Father Ewen’s shoulder.

“You’re cold, my son. Let’s make you warm.”

Father Ewen fixed his gaze on the featureless void that made up the figure’s face as the fog cleared all around them.

The pitch black sky which permeated the afternoon rose once again and blanketed the clearing with brilliantly warm sun.

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Just beyond the clearing, some of the congregants carried on their work building their farms. Children ran and played amongst the trees. The settlement was alive like nothing had happened. Father Ewen could feel the heat from the sun cascading over his shoulders and melting the frost from his face. The joy of healing radiated off of the figure’s hand and permeated the Father’s mind. His face broke into a smile and he began crying.

“Forgive me, Lord! It’s you! It’s been you all along!” Tears soaked Father Ewen’s skin as he sobbed even harder.

“Be calm and rest my child,” the figure responded. Father Ewen’s knees buckled as he fell into the figure’s embrace. The figure lowered him to the ground and laid him on his back.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want,” Father Ewen prayed, with the figure kneeling beside him.

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.”

The celebration of their thriving life in these woods, on these hallowed grounds, continued. In the centre of the village, there stood what appeared to be a priest wearing a golden chasuble. The long day began subsiding to evening, as the men built a bonfire where the priest was standing. The children ran around playing a game where they all chased after another child wearing a white garment. The child dressed in white had a little belt of twine tied around them attached to a longer lasso. Each of the “runners” wielded a pair of scissors and the first one to stab their scissors in the loop was the winner. As the men lit the bonfire, the women began to hold hands together in a circle and danced slowly around the flames. The priest smiled over the scene, declaring it good. He then looked straight at Father Ewen, the smile never leaving his face.

Back in his dwelling, old man Simon fixed his gaze on the small fireplace and watched the colours burn from the wood. Behind him, stood the same silhouetted figure as the one with Ewen. The figure never spoke, nor moved an inch.

Simon never heard him enter. He and the silent, empty visitor would speak to each other shortly. Across the room, Beatrice was sound asleep in bed.

The rest of the village remained submerged in fog. They’d all heard Father Ewen calling out to the Lord, while they prayed in their homes. It was the longest, most dreadful day they had experienced. None of them could explain the suffocating darkness and drowning mist that encircled their settlement. After hours of uncertainty, the community resigned itself to a long, early sleep. Those of whom could sleep, of course. There were many restless, waking souls well into the next day when the fog cleared. Even still, the sun refused to rise when Father Ewen began calling them to gather in front of the church.

“Arise, dear friends!” Father Ewen shouted.“Gather ‘round

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and hear the word of the Lord!”

The congregation stumbled through the disorienting darkness into the centre of their settlement, lanterns in hand.

“The good Lord came to me yesterday, and shared with me His ultimate plans for our prosperity!

“You saw him,” Simon questioned. “You saw the Lord?”

“Aye, Simon,” Father Ewen continued. “He wants to renew us, and this land. He intends to make us fresh stewards of the new Earth!”

“Aye! Then it’s true, Father. What I saw in the night! The Lord did visit me as well.”

“What did he ask of you, Simon?”

“He asked what I’d be willing to sacrifice, father.”

“Sacrifice for what?”

“The new Earth.”

Father Ewen and Old man Simon spoke under the glow of the village lanterns, detailing the Lord’s plan. They were to throw a party. The biggest celebration of their lives. According to the Lord, there needed to be a large bonfire in the centre of the village, as big as they could make it. The warmth from their fire and the noise of their celebration should be bold enough to enrapture the attention of even the most slackjawed minds back in Shannipeake. Early in the morning, the men should gather up and slaughter every animal in the village. Every pig, cow, horse, chicken, sheep, dog, and cat.

Not one creature should be left behind. They should harvest all the flesh from the dead animals, separate the bloody skin, and marinate them in spices. Additionally, there should be a broth made from the collected bones. Once the meat was cooked, the entire village was to gather and feast until not a single bite was left. Every single portion. All must be consumed. There was more, but this was the crucial first step.

“What must we do next?” Beatrice asked Father Ewen.

“All in due time, Beatrice,” Father Ewen said.“First, we must prepare the feast.” *** The screams from the slaughter reverberated off the mountains, penetrating through the thickest walls of every house, piercing the residents’ ear drums. Hardly a soul slept for two days and two nights. Nobody dared to investigate.

Local newspapers had reported on a large, black, cirrus cloud lingering over the mountain. That same mountain in which a large group of devout Christians followed their priest to start a new village. Many in town had wondered what became of that strange group of people. They belonged to some new type of faith foreign to the local Presbyterian and Catholic communities. The members of Shannipeake Falls Church were known to carry a version of the good book which seemed to have been modified, and shared little with the translations similar to the other churches. The group

was a charismatic and welcoming bunch, odd as they were.

Their Bible attracted the interest of some other believers in town which helped grow the church’s numbers. They gathered more regularly throughout the week, at odd hours. Some of the locals told stories of supposedly bearing witness to the priest, Father Ewen, stumbling around the empty town streets late at night, rambling incoherently to himself. This behaviour wasn’t isolated to Father Ewen either; sometimes other members of the church could be seen talking to themselves in the middle of the day. Since their departure, life had gotten fairly quiet in the small town of Shannipeake, but it was peaceful. Despite some of the local curiosity over the fate of the worshipers, they were content to leave them be. *** On the day of the ritual, the village performed their morning duties under the cover of darkness which they’d now become accustomed to. No use complaining about the dark when the new Earth promised them the brightest sky they’d ever seen. The fog had cleared from all around them and they set up large light posts with some makeshift hanging lanterns to illuminate their paths. Father Ewen taught the children the version of tag that he’d seen in his vision.

They’d felt unmotivated to play in the dark, but still they participated as their first contribution to the ritual. As the kids ran about, the rest of the small community gathered all of their animals.

Simon had constructed a small altar just a few yards away from where the bonfire would be built. The altar was made from his own table and wrapped in pine branches. One of the village men, Xavier, stood at the head of the table with a sickle in hand as each member of the village brought their animals. Each creature, aside from the larger beasts, would be placed on top of the table and be held still by their families as Xavier sliced their throats open. Each animal would bleed out entirely over the altar before moving to the next. Under no conditions could the critters be bashed over the head with a mallet first; according to Father Ewen, the physical suffering was crucial to the purification of the soul. Larger animals like horses, cows, and pigs were lassoed and held in place by a group of men as Xavier and Simon slashed open both sides of the livestock’s throats. The blood sprayed in all directions like the mist at the bottom of a waterfall. The animals howled, bleated, kicked, and thrashed as they were ritualistically slaughtered. The men watched with bated breath as they were gradually soaked in a thick, syrupy layer of blood.

Once each animal had drained its blood onto the altar and the small circle surrounding it, they lined up the carcasses and Xavier went over each one with a hacksaw, slicing them open and salvaging all the bones and flesh from each creature. As directed by Father Ewen, all the leftover skin and internal organs were piled up on the altar and burned as an

offering to the Lord.

Once the slaughter was complete, the men collected the bones, harvested the meat and brought it all to a large campfire where the women chargrilled the flesh and boiled the bones into a simple, entirely unappetizing broth. They collected herbs from the woods and harvested all of what they’d grown in the time they lived there. Every edible plant was combined in the broth and on the flesh as directed by Father Ewen. Nothing was to be wasted. The stench from the burning carcasses permeated the air while they cooked, intoxicating and disorienting the pit cooks. As per instructions, they were strictly forbidden from covering their faces to mask their senses. They gagged and choked as they tried to keep from vomiting into the broth as they cooked. Whatever bile in their stomachs fought to escape, they swallowed back.

The fumes were so strong that some of them fainted where they stood.

The feast was taken in near silence. Only the sounds of the burning coals from the pit, people chewing, and the occasional gagging provided any form of ambience. The process of preparing the feast was so unforgivingly disorienting that the women hardly noticed the hours passing by. The men were tired from cutting up wood and building the bonfire.

The children, having been instructed to run and play without stopping, were ravenously hungry. The village ate every morsel of food, fighting through the pain, eventually shoving food down each other’s throats when they began to slow down. Eventually, despite the hateful process of consuming the feast, they finished every drop of broth and every strip of flesh. Every household pet, every livestock animal, every living thing was consumed in its entirety. Soon enough, when the final stage of the ritual would come to an end, not one soul would be left alive.

Once the meal was complete, it came time for the grand bonfire. Every child in the village was instructed to accompany their mother to the fire, where they had a burlap sack wrapped tightly around their heads. Father Ewen stressed the importance of the children being the first to fall, as their innocence would guarantee their favour in the eyes of the Lord when they would wake once again on the new Earth. All of the village had become so discombobulated through the inhalation of smoke and over-consumption that they hardly recognized each other and felt little emotion through each stage of the ritual. Once the burlap sacks had covered each child’s face, they placed them lying down on the edge of the bonfire. As the children lay on the wood, the men approached brandishing a freshly sharpened sickle in each hand.

Father Ewen recited the Bible as they performed the sacrifice.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”

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The children squealed in horror as each one was routinely given the same treatment that the animals were given. After every child had crossed over to the new Earth, the men lit the fire.

“He leadeth me beside the still waters.”

The women gathered around the fire and danced in seven full rotations around the burning flames as the rotting, charred, flesh combined with the burning wood flying high into the atmosphere. Once the rotations were complete, it was their turn to join the children. Each of their husbands bound their hands and feet with twine, with a burlap sack to cover their face. The women were then placed on the fire next to their children. Their screams joined together with a violent chorus as the flames engulfed them. They kicked and thrashed but to no avail. Soon enough, their souls left their bodies as they joined their children in the new world.

Their screams faded into the darkened sky. The men watched as each and every body burned to completion. Father Ewen told them that only those rejected by the Lord wouldn’t be burned in the fire, and by the grace of His Holiness, not one of their souls was spared in the flames. Then, and only then, did the men complete the final sacrifice.

Each of them lined up around the perimeter of the fire, facing the bodies of their wives and children. All of them had their sickles in hand as they turned away from the fire and faced the edge of the forest. They were to be the new stewards, the new protectors of the new Earth. Each stage of the ritual was performed in order to purify themselves of their wicked bodies abscessed by the infection of sin. As long as they remained in their current flesh, the devil’s influence on God’s creation would stain their hearts and minds. They’d come to these woods to be closer to God. To get away from the evil advancements of the modern world. Father Ewen read his final recitations as the men performed the final rites.

“He restoreth my soul,” he shouted. “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”

The men began raising their blades to the spot just behind their left ears.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil: for thou art are with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

Finally, Father Ewen placed his Bible on the fire and took his position among the men, sickle gripped firmly in hand.

“May His goodness and mercy follow us to the new Earth, gentlemen,” Father Ewen shouted. “May the Lord bless you, and keep you.”

“And also with you,” the men shouted back in unison.

Father Ewen then slashed his throat open from the left to right ear, and each man followed his lead. Their bodies fell twitching along the edge of the fire as they choked on the blood pooling over the soil. The last thing they saw,

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as their vision faded into death, was the figure approaching from the woods. It bent over each body, inspecting the bloody gashes and charred flesh. *** Each of the souls awoke in the place where they had died.

The children, the women, every man, and even the animals all awoke in the position they were sacrificed in, all at once.

Their scars, the burns, the marks where they were bound, everything remained in place. Reminders of their loyalty to the Heavenly Father. The sky had returned to daylight just as Father Ewen promised it would, but the forest floor was thickly coated in the nearly blinding fog. Simon inspected the grounds, taking in every inch of this new Earth. The new kingdom would be built where they fell, he thought.

Father Ewen walked from the fire toward the altar where the animals were sacrificed, following what appeared to be the footsteps of the dark figure who watched over their ritual.

There, in the circle where the altar was placed, knelt a priest wearing a golden chasuble. He was hunched over the mutilated carcass of a sheep, eating out the raw, bloody flesh like a wild animal. When Father Ewen approached, the priest looked up from his meal and smiled at him.

“Welcome to the new Earth, my son,” the priest said.

The undignified nature of this image unnerved Father Ewen. However, they had only just awoken. They were the first stewards of His new creation, and this must be the Lord feasting on the purified fruits of their sacrifice. Who was he to question the nature of God? Father Ewen smiled at the priest, and knelt beside him at the carcass. The Priest saw Father Ewen’s humility and submission and smiled favourably upon his troubled servant.

The Lord declared it was good.

by skylar frances the heap of skin, bones, straw-course hair and memories lay on the floor before you. you feel sick. mourn the loss as it’s there. look back to yourself, the body allegedly yours. memories, laid on the floor before you, shrieking who you once were. this is what you look back to. yourself? the body (allegedly yours) peers back at you, slightly obscured from view. shriek at who you once were. that is when you didn’t have a strong enough voice. peer back. slightly obscured from view, the dysphoric heap, never again to rejoice. you will have a strong enough voice. it’s okay to mourn the loss; it was unfair. that dysphoric heap? never again to rejoice. a harvest of skin, bones, silken-soft hair.

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Horror has always been about community to me. Some of my foundational memories involve watching scary movies with my friends in high school; I would find and torrent the “best” worst movies I could find. We also had a respectable mix of traditionally “good” horror movies while considering what people could handle, and their subjective tastes. I found the group setting with close friends often made people more receptive. I still think fondly of the day I sat in my friend William’s bedroom, closed in by other friends nearby while being “forced” to play the video game Amnesia for their amusement. Fast forward several years, and I willingly chose to finish the game during the Pandemic over Twitch, so that I could still share the experience with old (and new) friends. Even to this day, I will rarely watch horror films by myself. So much of the thrill is derived from sharing it with others.

My first attempt at writing anything intentionally horror-related was the poem you just read in this issue. Horror has not usually come to mind as a creative inspiration but lately, I have been rethinking that. My favourite types of horror media have more to do with the underlying message being conveyed than how it is being conveyed. Much like how I love the sci-fi trope of exploring the human condition in allegories of androids and artificial intelligence, I cannot get enough of horror that explores different social commentaries. As a trans, queer, and neurodivergent person, I have always related to the monsters and the weirdos. I am so excited about the variety of submissions we have in this first issue; I am even more excited to continue to showcase diverse voices and stories with you all.

This underground exploration has always been crucial to the zine community.

I fell in love with this scene as a teenager reading and creating feminist riot grrrl zines in my bedroom. I feel so honoured to be given your words and images to piece together into this collection. The night that Kellyn and I received our first submission from an unfamiliar name, I had to confirm that it actually was from a total stranger. It felt surreal. Other people out there who had no direct relation to either of us were interested in this project. To all of our contributors and supporters, thank you. This zine truly would not exist without you. I’m excited to see where we go from here. skylar frances Creative Director/Co-Founder

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