The Local Crypt | Issue 002

a DIY horror literary i zine i

ISSUE 002 | SUMMER 2024

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: 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 stock.adobe.com, and unsplash.com

THE LOCAL CRYPT

ISSUE 002 | SUMMER 2024

AIDAN CHAFE is an author and high school teacher. He has published two collections of poetry: Gospel Drunk and Short Histories of Light.

He is frightened and fascinated by horror films. He grew up on the traditional territories of the Stó:lō, Semá:th, and Mathxwí peoples (Abbotsford, BC).

CALEB DAVIDSON is currently accepting applications for an author biography ghostwriter. Applicants may mail all inquiries to ryuohama@gmail.com.

NOAH JOHNSON (they/them) is a 23-year-old Canadian poet and artist living on the unceded territory of the Stó:lō Nation. They aspire to give asexuality more positive recognition. Noah is a Virgo, likes bubblegum ice-cream and recontextualizing moments through new perspectives.

RYAN ROBERTS is an eighteen year old who loves writing horror short stories based off some of his own childhood fears. He channels the way children see the world and the stories their imagination comes up with in his writings.

CHARLOTTE NEWBURY is a queer poet & writer from South East England. She likes witchcraft, ecofeminism and spider plants. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Unstamatic, Bad Betty Press, The Selkie and more. She’s on Twitter @charnewbpoet KAYLEE STAMM is a queer artist living in the Fraser Valley. She graduated from the University of the Fraser Valley with a BFA in Visual Arts. The main focus of her art is the uncanny and finding beauty in the grotesque, decay, and death.

KELLYN KAVANAGH (he/they) is a chaotic demon’s spawn based out of the Fraser Valley. 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.

SHARON DENTON is an asexual, Canadian writer and artist living on the unceded territory of the Stó:lö Nation. She’s strongly inspired by her experiences who have shaped her into herself, and the people closest to her. You can continue to follow Sharon’s poetic work on @thepoetrylee on Instagram.

THE LOCAL CRYPT

ISSUE 002 | SUMMER 2024

CRYPT KEEPING

01 Kellyn Kavanagh | note from the crypt keeper

POETRY

06 Aidan Chafe | hyde 07 Sharon Denton | beautiful bones 18 Aidan Chafe | my therapist treats jump scares 15 Noah Johnson | ootd 19 Kellyn Kavanagh | we don’t talk

SHORT FICTION

03 Ryan Roberts | sightless 08 Charlotte Newbury | a spiritual tonic 17 Caleb Davidson | mid-amputation 11 Kellyn Kavanagh | empty

VISUAL ART

09 Kaylee Stamm | you have my heart

THE LOCAL CRYPT

BY KELLYN KAVANAGH

T

his issue shouldn’t have taken nearly as long to reach you as it has, and for that I sincerely apologise. This entire experience of launching this project has been an incredible learning curve, and one that has been supported and encouraged with the endless patience and enthusiasm of our readers and contributors. When we first published Issue 001, I was floored by the response from various horror fans and writers around the world! Our humble publication has somehow reached the attention of a small yet diverse audience of readers not just across Canada, but around the United States of America and the United Kingdom as well.

This reception was something I had truly not anticipated.

Our only intentions when working on this project were to share our passion for horror and creative writing. Not only did we have various readers showing interest in our zine, but we received a bunch of submissions from contributors who trusted us with their work. For all of this, we are so incredibly grateful.

During our time putting together Issue 001, we noticed that the collected stories and poems within the zine began showing loosely similar themes and concepts. Throughout

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the issue, there were these ongoing ideas of resurrection, rebirth, of things changing and being made new. When approaching the last issue, we didn’t have any specific theme in mind, yet somehow the theme came together on its own.

Imagine our surprise when, with Issue 002, the same thing happened once again. This time around, the contributions touched on the concept of agency, and the various ways it can be stripped away from us. While the subject in itself can be a challenging, uncomfortable, sometimes morbid affair, there is a comforting feeling when reading each piece as part of a collective whole. It reminds us that we’re not alone. Our struggles may be different, but our hearts all beat the same.

The existential pain of humanity is something we all share.

There is healing in community, and that community is something we should all hold dear to our hearts.

Throughout my time working as the editor for this zine, I’ve had to completely re-learn and evaluate what it means to be an editor. When I first began my editing journey, I started at the student newspaper at my university. The job of editing journalism is a much, much different job from being an editor of a creative writing zine. For one, I’ve come to learn

that “editing” as I knew it is hardly relevant to this position.

In truth, a more accurate description of this role may be something adjacent to “curator.” I’ve learned a lot from the job itself, and am thrilled by how it has led me to a new stage of my professional career, where I will soon be starting a new journey, working with art curators and educators to curate and display educational creative experiences.

That leads me to my last thoughts here, as I reflect on the process of compiling this issue and the future of The Local Crypt. Back when we first announced that we were accepting submissions for this issue, we intended to publish for the spring. Unfortunately, as we were editing and compiling submissions, we began facing multiple setbacks that came one after another. We faced multiple changes in our personal, professional, and academic lives that ultimately pulled our attention in too many directions. As a result, this issue now comes to our readers near the end of summer. While we’ve managed to catch up on our workload, the changes continue to keep coming as both of us move forward in our respective roles. In light of these new obligations, we’ve decided to take a temporary hiatus for the following season while we acclimate

to our new positions. While we hope to return in the next year, Issue 002 will be our last issue for 2024. With that note, we want to thank all of our contributors for both issues. This zine wouldn’t be what it is without all of your incredible, unique, creative voices and we couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to share your words with a humble, international audience of horror fans. Your support has meant the world to us here. We, as well as our contributors, have worked to bring you this issue. We sincerely hope you enjoy it. Until then, stay scared, friends. We’ll catch you on the flipside.

Sincerely, Kellyn Kavanagh editor/co-founder

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Sightless

BY RYAN ROBERTS

W

hen he found himself leaving high school and thrust into the real world, Max never imagined that meant working a minimum wage job at a ghost mall. There hadn’t been a single customer in their small kids toy store for over an hour, and as he kept looking at his watch desperate for the clock to hit 6pm he sighed in boredom.

“What, got nothing to do either?” In walked Marla, she worked at the store across from his that was filled with all kinds of oddities only grandmas would find interesting, the store itself called The Great Glassware. A boring name for a boring store, it fit perfectly and Marla with her bright green hair and multiple facial piercings stood out like a sore thumb working there.

“Yeah, only about an hour left of my shift, thank god,” Max huffed in response Marla let out a dry laugh and shook her head.

“Damn kids and them not wanting to work any more.”

Despite being only a year older than him, she often teased him about ‘still being a kid’ and lovingly referred to him as a child.

Max ran a hand through his oily black hair, his fingers getting slightly tangled near the ends of his shoulder-length strands before grabbing a hair tie and putting it up into a loose ponytail.

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“Man if you only knew how dead it is in here, at least you get a few old ladies every day. I don’t think I’ve seen a single customer in weeks. I have no clue how we’re still open”.

He wasn’t wrong. The old toy store was clearly decaying as many of the products had begun to collect dust. No matter how many times he cleaned up and no one seemed to ever come through the entrance beneath the neon sign stating ‘Big Top Toys’.

“Well I have a surprise for you then! An under construction area is near where that one record shop used to be, just a bit further down the hall past the food court!” Marla sounded so excited, her eyes shining in anticipation and it was very obvious she wanted to go see what was going on and wanted Max to join her.

“Let me guess, this means I have to leave my work to come with? You know my manager is going to flip her shit if I do that again man.” Max huffed and, as much as he wanted to go, knew he couldn’t risk his job to go exploring again despite also knowing his manager barely cared anyways as long as no one stole from the store while he was away. It’s why he was the only one working shifts, there was no one else willing to sit in an empty store for hours on end just for a measly few dollars a week. It was barely enough for the kid to live off, but it was still a living.

“Y’know what, fine I’ll go with you. But this is the last time I go on a ‘mission’ with you”, he made sure to do air quotes around the mission and Marla simply laughed in response, knowing he said this every time but never stuck to it. As he got up from his desk chair behind the counter, he took one last look up at the security camera above his station and gave it a curt nod before following Marla out. Like many abandoned malls, the amount of for lease signs littering empty store windows outnumbered the open stores by a lot. As they slowly passed the old food court, the two took notice that only one place remained in business, the old KFC stood a proud beacon of light in the dark corner of the mall surrounded by vacant and run down stalls that at one point bustled with life no longer there.

“Damn, how far away is this thing Mar?” Max panted trying to keep up with the speed walking girl ahead of him, not used to this much exercise despite not having been walking for more than maybe 5 minutes at this point.

“Only like one or two more turns and then we’re there, it’s a restricted area but I’ve noticed no one ever patrols over there so we can probably sneak in pretty easily kid. Just remember when we get there not to make too much noise, don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves ok?” Max gave a slight nod in response, not used to her sounding so enthusiastic about any of her previous adventures around the mall. Within less than two minutes, they’d finally made it to their desired location and stared at the big “under construction” caution tape surrounding a huge wall with a small white door opened just a crack. Its paint was visibly chipping off from repeated use over time. It appeared to the two that this section of the mall had never existed before and came as a surprise to be here at all. As they snuck in through the doorway, a squeaking rang out and took over the dark corridors behind them and with a loud thud, the door slammed shut behind them.

The inside of the area they entered was eerily silent, more so than the mall itself had been.

“Hey Mar?” Max began, “Maybe we should go back? I mean my manager will freak out if she sees I’m not there again and I can’t afford to lose this job. I gotta pay my bills y’know?”

“What, are you a scaredy cat?” Marla teased back, and with that Max quickly shut up. He looked around tentatively, curious yet cautious of this new environment before his eyes landed on something in the distance.

A line of near hundreds of perfectly porcelain white mannequins stood in the dark beyond, positioned facing the doorway they entered through and completely naked and still.

Their poses were each unique, as if they had picked the poses

themselves. The bodies were all slim and feminine, a slight shine from the faint light source of the window on the wall reflecting off each one at seemingly the exact same spot. The faces were intricately carved and looked almost human except for one detail, each of the mannequins had all facial features except for eyes.

“Hell no, I’m out.” Max knew when he got that tingling feeling up his spine and the twist in his guts that it was better to be seen as a coward than end up a victim and right now he felt like he was a protagonist in a horror movie. As he turned and twisted the door handle, nothing happened. The door refused to budge as if locked from the outside despite no key hole being visible at all.

“Mar can you help? It won’t move!” Max’s heart rate began to accelerate as Marla tried pulling too to no avail.

“What the fuck? Why isn’t it opening?!” At this point he started to panic, if even she was getting scared then something was truly wrong. In all his time knowing her, Max never once saw Marla afraid of anything. To see the anxiety rise in her eyes was a sight he never thought he’d ever see. The two looked back, trying to search for anything within the now locked space to use to pry the door open as something caught their eyes.

“That thing.. it wasn’t that close before right?” Marla was right, one of the mannequins seemed to have inched closer than before by only a tiny yet noticeable bit. The sun now reflected off its eyeless face instead of its porcelain body, the pose changing to something much more uncanny with its arms bent back at an awkward angle above its head, like a pose a dancer in swan lake would make, and face jutting forward in an unnatural and seemingly impossible way as its neck was creaked into a perfect 90° angle. They turned back to the door and, more desperately now, tried to pry and claw at it before looking back again, the mannequin once again changing poses to now having its hands desperately clawing at its eyeless face, a black liquid pouring from where eyes should be, coating the once white fingers in an inky substance. Max felt his heart rate rise and his breathing quicken, nothing about this was normal and he desperately looked for a way out as Marla began to shake in fear. Her eyes were locked onto the mannequin as if that could keep it in place, as if it would stop whatever was happening.

“Mar.. Mar what the fuck is happening?! This.. this has to be a sick joke right?!” Max could barely speak between his heavy and fast breaths, Marla made no response as a loud thump was heard reverberating off the walls and Max quickly glanced at her to check that she was ok. She lay passed out

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on the floor, that same black liquid poured out of her mouth and nose like a mix of vomit and saliva. Her eyes were rolled back into her skull, looking like two porcelain orbs instead of eyeballs. Blood rolled down her foundation coated face and pooled beneath her head. He began to panic more as he felt a cold yet solid hand grasp onto his shoulder tightly, refusing to let go and holding him in place. Shakily, he glanced over his shoulder and the mannequin’s face was right beside his.

He felt his entire body go limp, something wet dripping down his face as he lost all control of his limbs. He was able to see but was powerless to move, a passenger in his own body.

Standing above him was one of the mannequins holding what looked to be an iron pipe coated in what he assumed to be his and Marla’s blood. It dripped onto his face, the wet sensation making him want to wince in disgust but being absolutely frozen still like a statue.

The mannequins began to all move towards the two, shifting and turning in ways that shouldn’t be possible with arms bending back almost about to snap off and legs twisting so where kneecaps should be facing backwards as they grabbed the two teens and carried them deeper into the darkness.

They laid the teens onto two tables, strapping them down with tight black belts around their legs, arms, and throats, as precaution despite both teens being completely incapacitated currently. Heavy silver metal masks were placed over their faces, small holes for breathing being the only source of letting any small fragment of light in. A tube was then connected to the holes and a white liquid swam through and into the mask, the teens both letting out loud screams, squirming and tugging against the bindings that held them still as the boiling liquids hit their skin. Max tried as hard as he could to call out to Marla, to do anything to get out of the bindings, to even move his body how he wanted to, but nothing worked. Over their body another mask lay and the liquid filled that mold as well, boiling blisters piercing through once soft flesh and gasps for breaths as well as whimpers of pain being the only sound other than the filling of the metal. The teens were far too weak to keep yelling, god knows no one could hear them in the secluded section of the mall anyways. Soon after, only a few minutes later, the room fell silent and the mannequins removed the molds from the teens.

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They lay still, flesh and porcelain merging together as the mannequins looked on silently. As the horrid smelling mixture cooled, the teens’ limbs were released from the restraints as the mannequins bent them into inhuman shapes and the sound of bones snapping and what little flesh remained tearing filled the silence, and yet the teens made no more sounds still.

The next day, when Max’s manager came into work, she found Max sitting silently at his desk. His body lay still and stiff, white as porcelain and perfectly smooth. His manager gasped in horror, a realization dawning on her face just seconds after spotting what she once thought to be a silly replica of Max. This wasn’t a replica. This was real. His face was carved to perfection and his once oily hair was no more.

He looked like a perfect version of himself chiseled right down to his slightly hooked nose and asymmetrical mouth. The only missing feature was his eyes, sunken into his face for the rest of eternity.

Hyde

BY AIDAN CHAFE How did they split the atom of my psyche to unlock these masks?

I have been blind -folded for safety from my fears.

I follow a string into synapses branching like roots, spreading electrical fingers in my neural tissue.

I trap it in the reflection— hooked, buzzing— chemically imbalanced.

Not the man who appears before you, the stranger, the one whistling in the wind.

My dark passenger— hungry for attention, snapping a soft creature with his teeth.

beautiful bones

BY SHARON DENTON

magazines, and social media screens slim-fitting shirts and bikini strings. influenced beauty standards, skeletons. flesh dissolves off our soul. features contoured by the shadows of our bones. maintaining acceptance with foundation, and an airbrush. fingers touch when wrapping wrists, but remaining the “happy girl.” lifeless, decayed. resting peacefully in coffins, to be told we’re beautiful.

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A Spiritual Tonic

BY CHARLOTTE NEWBURY

T

hey first announced that gin was an acceptable replacement for the Holy Water usually used in exorcisms when I was catering an eightieth birthday party at the senior living centre.

The words scrolled across the lower third of a muted TV while a reporter in bright red lipstick gestured at a graph.

One line demonstrated the recent spike in reported possessions, another the projected bump in gin sales.

“I’ll have one of those, please, dear.”

I turned my frown forward, to the growing queue of grey-haired attendees before me. Neat rows of empty cups and saucers sat between us, largely ignored. A fly buzzed in dizzying circles around the sandwiches.

The woman who’d spoken wore a sensible green cardigan and smiled toothlessly at me as she pointed again at the screen. “Gin, please,” she said. “At my age, it’s best to be sure.” **** “Why do you think they’ve done it?” I asked later that night, my head on Michael’s shoulder while the TV played stock footage of the Vatican entrance.

He barely glanced up from his phone. “Done what?”

“This.” I waved a hand. “Is it a brand partnership or something, do you think?”

“Stocks of the other stuff ’s probably running low - this way there’s less pressure on the priests to make more.”

“But why gin?”

“What have you got against gin?”

The lamp above the TV flickered as I sat up, frowning at him in the gloom. “Nothing, obviously. That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“It doesn’t make sense. They’re completely different!

Where’s the healing magic, or whatever, even supposed to

come from?”

Now he sat back too, and I could see my frown mirrored in the downturn of his mouth. “I didn’t realise you believed any of that religious stuff,” he said.

“I don’t. That’s not the point,” I stressed, frustrated. “I’m just saying it shouldn’t work–” “You’re thinking too much about this,” Michael said. He pushed up from the sofa and headed towards the kitchen.

“Nightcap?”

My hands smelled like the lime wedges I’d been cutting all afternoon. My cuticles still sang with it. I shook my head. **** The novelty gift sets launched about a week later.

Don’t speak to me until I’ve exorcised my demons! on a cocktail glass.

I scowled at the laughing friends who placed a set into their trolley. My palms itched.

When I exited the store behind them, I had to step over shattered glass, bold print fractured on the cobbles. **** That weekend, I visited my mum. She refused to let me over the porch threshold until I’d downed a shot. I clenched my teeth against the tang of quinine and juniper as she stared.

After a few excruciating minutes, she waved me in. She was listing against the doorframe. Her words came out slurred. “Never could be sure,” she muttered. “Not with you.”

I walked straight to the kitchen and rinsed my mouth in the sink, though there wasn’t much point.

It only works if you believe in it, I think.

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you have my heart KAYLEE STAMM

Gouache and pencil crayon September 2023

“A single, disconnected anatomical heart creates feelings of abject horror as we are not used to seeing this vital organ outside of the human body. It reminds us of our frailty and mortality as humans while also making us wonder: where is the rest of the body?

Additionally, You Have My Heart has the implication that this heart is being presented to one’s lover in a sickly show of devotion.”

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THE LOCAL CRYPT

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Empty

BY KELLYN KAVANAGH

Y

ou’ve always felt lonely, perhaps cripplingly so. This is nothing new. Walking along this barren cityscape pummels you with that same, dreadfully familiar feeling of emptiness. The utter lack of vibrancy or movement here ties your loneliness to an anchor with a chain and for a moment you feel as though you’ve been thrust into the depths of a dying ocean. Are you crying? Does it matter? Rainfall sticks to your clothes as if they were stapled to your skin and soaks your hair to your brow like liquid glue. You stop at a crosswalk in front of a hollow structure that you remember visiting as a child, your favourite bodega. You press your face to the glass as you recall vivid memories of sunny days with your mother and buying little plastic bags full of five cent candies. Peering through the window, you can almost see the old poster for the Kevin Spacey film, K-Pax, taped haphazardly to the wall by the cash register.

Looking apathetically over the trashless sidewalk, all you see for miles are lines of empty, unbranded vehicles. Each car is the same make, a black compact vehicle. All of them are perfectly parallel parked with just enough manoeuvring space, not that there seems to be anyone around to move them. Every car feels like a tombstone, a reminder of not so long ago, less rainy days.

The unoccupied buildings littered over the silent streets provide the only remaining evidence of the city’s former personality. Monolithic, Victorian era structures shaped like churches where one could imagine lively sermons full of fire and brimstone. These immaculately abandoned buildings are strewn amidst a plague of brutalist office architecture. They showcase hundreds of windows with no lights, all with one singular, unreachable door in the middle of the building. If you strain your eyes hard enough, you might almost catch a glimmer of light glowing from underneath the doorway.

You used to walk everywhere. At least one little adventure every day. That’s what you called them, little adventures. They started in childhood, on these short little walks with your mother. Even just a trip to the grocery store; your mother would turn it into a mission, find the ingredients to save the world. You never questioned that the items you needed to save the world from destruction never quite made any sense.

Two bunches of bananas, a four-litre jug of milk, and dish soap. She never offered any explanation for the necessity of each item. You knew it was a game, rationality didn’t matter.

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Walks to the park were espionage missions to recover lost tales of history; a stroll through the fairgrounds served as the imaginative sandbox for discussing your plans for the zombie apocalypse. These adventures occurred as often as possible. Rain or shine, it never mattered. If there was time in the day, you’d go for a walk.

Those memories from childhood feel so far away in this moment, like echoes reverberating from the mouth of an inescapable pit. Times were simpler back then. When did the memories fade? What corner did you turn to find yourself here? Replaying the most recent backlog of experiences, you find yourself at a loss. For as long as you remember, you’ve been walking aimlessly through this abandoned city. You try to remember how you got here, but all you know is isolation. You press your hand against the glass of the old bodega and imagine yourself with the ability to reach through. For a moment, the glass disappears, and you reach out to grasp the warmth inside, but feel nothing. The place is empty, void of all interior life.

Gazing into the depths of the cavernous abyss, you feel a sense of frustration overriding the emptiness. This is your city, these are your memories, this was your life. Try as one might, nothing and nobody could ever take these from you.

You turn back to look once more over the monolithic structures and looming office towers before stepping over the threshold into the empty room. However, the glass has once again re-appeared.

Feelings of rage boil within you. Fuck this, you think, almost shouting out loud at your reflection. You’ve been kicked while you’re down so many times it’s time to throw a few punches of your own. Your knuckles are already turning translucent-white from being clenched for so long. It’s not like anything matters in this lonesome wasteland. Bitter memories flood through your mind like the time you nearly drowned in the outdoor neighbourhood swimming pool. The helplessness, the cold, and the sudden rush of warmth before you give up the fight. Remembering those feelings delivers a shock to your brain like a bolt of lightning being bashed through your skull. Energy courses through your veins giving your soul a second wind. You reach back with a closed fist and force your knuckles against the glass, but you hardly make a dent.

The sound of your fist hitting the glass sends a chilling echo across the cityscape. The emptiness, and the firmness of the glass that just a second ago had disappeared upon triggering your memories, now pours kerosene over the rage boiling inside you. You turn back to look again over

the desolate street and get the uncanny feeling as though you’re being watched. Scanning the length of the rain-soaked street from your corner of the sidewalk, you see no evidence to support your paranoia. In theory, this should settle your anxiety, but the sense of surveillance lingers on. Once again, you clench your fist and begin throwing rapid punches against the glass window as though your hand were an inanimate object, a brick to throw thoughtlessly in a desperate act of protest.

Cracks begin to appear on the bodega window with your every assault against its barrier. Loose shards of glass tear apart your skin to shreds and expose the bones underneath.

The rainfall washes the blood from your hand onto the sidewalk as quickly as it flows. Your nerves scream out in pain and desperation, but in your frenzied state the pain hardly registers as more than the feeling of your pulse in the tip of your finger. Finally, the glass shatters.

The shards fall like droplets off melted icicles. The moment the window finally breaks, it’s as if you were punching nothing but the surface of a pool of water. They fall in an explosion of liquid pieces down into the darkness behind the storefront. When you’re once again confronted with the emptiness of reality, the fact that your memories have no bearing on your present circumstance, your instinct is to recoil back to the safety of the sidewalk. However, it’s too late. The momentum from the force of your punch causes you to trip over the barrier of the broken window and send your body hurtling into the void.

There is nothing you can do now but fall. Your thoughts cry out frantically in all directions, your mind splintering like a fractured mirror. Your body feels hollow, like all your organs have been flushed out and the only thing holding your shape is the air coursing through your empty skin. You’re tempted by the thought of trying to swim upwards, fight against the gravity forcing you down. However, you know this is a fool’s errand. You can barely move your fingers, let alone your arms and legs.

Goose pimples appear all over your skin, your nerves tighten up and your stomach twists in a knot. The deeper you fall you’re surrounded by so much darkness; you feel like you’re drowning in thin air. The cold enters your lungs as you gasp for a full breath that never quite settles. You feel as though this may be the rest of your life, and just as you begin to succumb to the eternal plunge, an electric jolt shocks through your system and reprieves your nerves with a blanket of warmth. You’re nearly asleep by the time you feel your body smack against a cold, tile floor.

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You struggle to open your eyes after the initial impact.

Your vision is blurry, and you feel dizzy as you try to force your way up from the ground. From what you’re able to gather, you’re in a small room made of concrete walls. There’s no windows save for one darkened, see-through pane of glass across from you. There is a metal door on the wall behind you. As you move to stand up you feel a large wet spot on your pants. You’ve pissed yourself. Your feet are bare save for an odd bundle of electrical wires taped to your toes. The tile floor is also marked with a strange lining resembling an electrical grid. Your t-shirt is dripping with sweat, your hair feels dishevelled and glued to your brow. Your vision begins to settle as you look up toward the ceiling, where you see a limp body hanging from a noose tied to a motionless fan. The midsection of the corpse appears bloated, as though it were pregnant. Inside the dead person’s belly, you can make out the faint motion of something moving underneath the skin.

Somewhere in the room, a disembodied voice barks indistinguishable speech through a microphone that you can’t seem to find no matter how hard you strain each of your senses. You try to call out to the voice, and the room goes quiet. You’re standing up now, soaked in sweat and piss and standing mere inches away from the pregnant corpse. You try to take a step forward, and an electric jolt forces its way from your feet to your brain and forces you to fall on your knees.

“FUCK!” You cry out in agony. Once again, the voice angrily howls out gibberish through an invisible speaker.

Another electric jolt, and your hands fall over the grid. Your skin is burned and peeling, and your knuckles are bloody.

Above you, the belly of the corpse begins tearing open, pouring hot, sticky blood over your head and drowning out your vision. The electrical grid shocks you with every drop of blood that falls over it. You try to stand, and the voice yells out some more, followed by another shock.

You fall to the ground flat on your back, the blood-soaked grid sending electricity into every nerve ending along your spine. The room spins in your vision as you struggle to process what is happening to you. With every rotation you see the hanging corpse twisting and writhing, like strobe lights imprinting the rapidly shifting poses in your memory.

Something is moving within the body. The creature inside the corpse is forcing its way out from the host, performing its own C-section removal from inside the womb with what appears to be a rusty box-cutter. It appears to be an infant humanoid, with no discernible features save for a singular eye and two extraordinarily long ears. It has no mouth, no nose. Instead of a hand it has a rusted, broken box-cutting

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blade growing out of its arm. The dead body’s insides spew over the electric grid as the infant crawls out from the corpse’s partially disembowelled midsection and falls to the ground. The baby, if one could even call it that, cracks its skull on the electric floor and dies upon impact.

Your vision is starting to fade, your eyelids growing heavier by the second. You consider how you got here, questioning your circumstances with a pitiable degree of indifference.

None of your memories, at least, the few that you’ve retained, explain any of this predicament. The scene in your mind cuts in and out with the still image of an oddly patterned rug. It has a brownish colour with yellow markings, some kind of zig-zagging pattern you can’t entirely make sense of. There’s a cold feeling all over, like the air in the doctor’s office when you go for a check up. There’s a pair of feet in front of you, wearing black leather shoes. The hem of beige suit pants blend in with the brown tint of the rug. Your vision fades again and this time you wake up again inside the void. You’re no longer falling, but somehow this feels worse. You’re laying suspended in the silent air, completely immobile. You can feel the entire weight of this hollow prison pressing down on your chest, blocking your ability to breathe. You can’t tell if your eyes are open or closed at this point. You decide they must have been closed, however, when your vision suddenly snaps back and you find yourself once more stuck to the electric floor in that awful chamber. Maybe this is it, maybe it’s not worth fighting any longer. Resigned, bitter acceptance washes over you in a tidal wave of resentment.

There is nothing for you here. You’ll never escape. No matter how loud you scream, it falls on deaf ears. However viciously you fight, you’re always knocked down. If you try to leave, someone will be there waiting to pull you back into this cold, solitary hell. They’ll say it’s for your protection, it’s what you truly need. They’ll tell you that you don’t know what’s best, or even what you want. Everything you love, everything you hold dear, it’s kept safe from bearing witness to your predicament. You could cry and beg as loud as you like; call for help, scream for your mother, reach out to your siblings, friends, or lover. No matter how close they feel, they’ll be kept far out of reach, safely tucked away from any position of interference. This is your reality.

The electricity coursing through your body fries your nerves to exhaustion. You no longer feel any pain. You twitch on the ground with your eyes fixed on the mutilated corpse hanging above you. The violent howling from the invisible speaker drowns out in echoes in the back of your mind. Your nose just barely registers the putrid smell of your rotting

flesh and burning hair. Your sinuses fill up with blood that leaks down the back of your throat and into your lungs. Your vision slowly floods with television static, and everything turns grey.

When you wake up again, you find yourself lying down on a rain-slicked street corner in an abandoned city. Every car looks the same; black sports cars, parked perfectly parallel to the sidewalk with perfectly equal distance from each other.

Every building looks nearly identical, stemming from two basic builds. Brutalist office architecture and Victorian-era monolithic churches. Besides yourself, everything is empty.

Maybe at one point in time, long ago, there was vibrant life here. People with fully fledged-out lives and careers and families. Maybe you were one of these people, maybe your family is still out there, somewhere. The silence lingers in every corner and reverberates back into your ear, causing you to feel as though you’ve been pierced through the skull from one canal to the other. The feeling of emptiness permeates inside your soul like dried cement. This is nothing new, you’ve always felt lonely.

THE LOCAL CRYPT

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OOTD

BY NOAH JOHNSON I was outside in my comfortable colourful 2000’s Disney sitcom inspired outfit of the day. When a stranger shot me with dehumanising eyes.

“I am still human” I thought to myself as I continued to walk through my neighbourhood.

Beside his upside-down Canada flags there was a Trump-supporting truck driver on the prowl beside a local school playground.

There to help keep God’s children safe as long as the children weren’t gay.

He saw my painted nails as painted targets his voice pointed me out like a pistol “HEY FAG!” Followed by a reloading of “F” words.

His eyes barked with rage as he blamed me for existing he aggressively opened his door and pulled out a hunting knife his army boots barely worn were then introduced to the broad daylight.

“I am still human” I said to the forty-year-old man playing G.I Joe as I tried to move on.

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ISSUE 002 | SUMMER 2024

Though G.I Joe was not stopping there was no mercy in his walk no humanity in his words no assistance from the crowds I walked among the ambiance turned to panic “I am still human!” I fearfully cried while mothers screamed at me strangers struggled to pin me down my cries for help were heard as roars as more and more trucks blocked any way out my self-defence was evidence recorded as proof, monsters exist a scapegoat to blame when you murder people like me all your problems go away “I am still human” I barely spoke, choking up the blood that proved me so.

“You are not human” his mob of men echoed his words.

“You are not human” he chanted at me until I began to believe him.

He left me outside barely breathing.

“You are not human” was the last words I heard in my childhood-shredded blood-stained outfit of the day.

THE LOCAL CRYPT

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Mid-Amputation

BY CALEB DAVIDSON

I can feel the knife make the incision through the veil into severance. My missing leg burns in the abyss, just out of eye’s reach. I feel the walls pulse but I can’t hear them. Something about a hundred micrograms of propofol. The hands on my body move lightly with care, unlike the chokehold on my throat. I can’t tell what’s real and what’s hallucinated. My mind knows it’s asleep. My eyes see they’re closed.

I float above my own corpse, tethered like our dog to the stake in the yard at my grandparents’ cabin at the lake with the ancient rowboat rocking lazily by the jetty we built when I was three and I only hammered one nail in. My thoughts can’t be stopped unless they stop themselves and it doesn’t seem likely. The words blend into one another with frenzied cadence and I hate what they’re saying. I’m floating in the water in the lake but it’s spinning and pulling me in. It feels like the light at the end of the tunnel is calling my name but it’s far and it’s dark and I can’t hear it.

I can taste my own blood. I can smell my hair burning. I can feel my left foot just like when I stubbed my big toe so hard on my brother’s dresser that it knocked his green piggy bank off and I had to search for missing pennies with throbbing pain in my foot and I cried a childish tear into his dark blue carpet. I can see the white light now, but a face gets in the way and it’s covered in blue and it’s looking at me and not. Something I don’t understand moves beneath me and I can feel it circle the whirlpool to snatch me down with its algae hair and reeded fingers. A shadow moves outside my vision that slithers like cockroaches and I can feel the propofol again. It grabs me and I sink, the light fading away into the mottled waters. I still can’t hear the voice calling me, calling my name, begging me to hear it, and it sounds like my mother and father and brothers. I can’t be awake anymore.

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ISSUE 002 | SUMMER 2024

My Therapist Treats Jump Scares

BY AIDAN CHAFE After I watched the clown alien sever the boy with his teeth like a chainsaw I couldn’t walk near storm drains for weeks. Paper boats tore through the torrents of my nightmares.

Any darkness spilled a flood of clowns.

I wanted the comfort of ’90s Pennywise prancing the streets in his campy clown suit, bald spot like some middle-aged gag, but deviating eyeballs in high definition planted Goya’s Saturn in my skull.

If the face of horror’s perfected, can we ever escape from our fears?

Now, whenever I attend a nephew’s birthday party, or Cirque du Soleil, I never know what contortions of panic will wrench my face.

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We don’t talk about these taboo things. So they linger in the air like the stench of a rotting corpse decaying into the earth, modifying itself into toxic sludge, unrecognizable from its former humanity. Desecrating sacred soil with chemical burning, killing whatever remnants of life might’ve grown through the lifeless body. Nothing grows here.

Mourners gather for a funeral procession. Processing the tragic state of events preceding. This time everyone wears a black veil, everyone cries out screaming. They uphold their crosses upside down, digging them deeper into radioactive beds of fruitless sand. They offer thoughts and prayers and catechisms and whispering to each other, we should have known better.

We should have talked.

We know better.

We knew.

We should have talked about this.

We should talk.

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ISSUE 002 | SUMMER 2024

BY KELLYN KAVANAGH

THE LOCAL CRYPT

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