My twilight wanderings had led me far. In the plains of Jum I saw pigs that walked as men and muttered wicked chants to an ancient wrathful god, in the city of Ka'esran, I beheld a chorus of wicked children piercing hearts with eldritch secrets meant for no man's ears, I met a lady whose most loving touch brought only pain and was almost deafened by the klaxons of interminable war! But, it was worth it to make it past the gibbering madnesses around me and into the company of the goddess Nish-Fkyua, The-Laugh-That-Mocks-Creation. Her skin was a thousand cats in tight corsets, her eyes two hungry Skramps, and her wide open vagina a Gnufrat of most resplendent hideousness. Her voice caused my fingernails to break off in unison and my eyes to melt into pools of jelly. But, what she told me, the ghastly primal, was worth the price I had paid and the untold millions of miles I had journeyed: "Beyond the gates of Eth there lies a palace of dark opulence, where a king with no eyes sits upon pillows of manflesh waiting. He waits to lead the most courageous and foolish of men into a place of unspeakable horror and delight. He will take you to a golden door engraved with symbols in old Qothric that tell of the secret location of another door atop a perilous mountain where the Masters from Above Time meet every thousand years to plot the end of being. When you get there, you must... BUST DOWN THE DOOR AND EAT ALL THE CHICKENS! Includes stories by Mykle Hansen, Brandi Wells, xTx, Nicole Cushing, Gabe Durham,and R.E. Greene. Contains book reviews of D. Harlan Wilson's Peckinpah and L.V. Rautenbaumgrabner's As I Was Cutting and Other Nastinesses. Cover art by Kristian Adam.
Authors
Nicole Cushing is the Bram Stoker Award® winning author of Mr. Suicide and a two-time nominee for the Shirley Jackson Award. Various reviewers have described her work as “brutal”, “cerebral”, “transgressive”, "wickedly funny", “taboo”, “groundbreaking” and “mind-bending”. Rue Morgue magazine included Nicole in its list of 13 Wicked Women to Watch, praising her as an “an intense and uncompromising literary voice”. She has also garnered praise from Jack Ketchum, Thomas Ligotti, and Poppy Z. Brite (aka, Billy Martin). Her second novel, A Sick Gray Laugh (2019) was named to LitReactor’s Best Horror Novels of the Last Decade list and the Locus Recommended Reading List. She has recently completed and polished her third novel. She lives in Indiana.
Brandi Wells is the author of This Boring Apocalypse, Please Don't Be Upset, and Poisonhorse. Their debut novel, Cleaner, was published by Wildfire Books in August 2023 and is forthcoming from Hanover Square Press in January 2024 as The Cleaner. They teach creative writing at CSU Fullerton and hold a Phd in Literature and Creative Writing from University of Southern California.
Gabe Durham is the author of a novel, FUN CAMP, and a book about 90s Christian Nintendo games, BIBLE ADVENTURES. He is the editor of Boss Fight Books. He lives in Los Angeles. http://www.bossfightbooks.com
