"Good s.h.i.t!"

The police advanced slowly, preparing themselves for what might be waiting for them past the short hallway. They all had been told it was a woman that had called in and they knew it took them longer than they thought to trace the call. For that they were at a loss. They were carefully keeping their eyes peeled for this woman who had called in. But somehow, deep inside of them, they knew the worst.

They kept moving, their guns raised and ready. They all pa.s.sed slowly by a door on both sides. One steel and the other wood. And from the steel door to their right they heard very faint shouts for help. Those people would get help soon enough. First thing first. They didn't realize it then, but would later, that they were stepping through a pool of blood that had evidently seeped out from under the wooden door with the single deadbolt. Their focus, the small archway to the kitchen, looked too close but still they kept moving.

Loud and raspy coughing blew out at them from the kitchen, then came several braying belches. Then the sound of thick liquid slapping to the floor.

"Fire it up!" the woman in the kitchen screamed so suddenly some of the men jumped.

The awful aroma grew worse with every step forward. It was like stepping into a strange dimension or another world. Each man's heart quickened as they came forward. This was it.

When the first three snuck to the archway they were stuck in an almost trance like stare. Mild grimaces furrowing on their faces. One, the youngest of them all, backed away, turned, and ran all the way back down the hallway and puked up his supper. Never in their entire careers had they seen such a disgusting and horrifying sight. Never. And some will leave the force because of it, unable to handle the nightmares and having to work the job at the same time.

The woman in the kitchen paced back and forth from the stove to the table, table to stove. Her hair had been burnt off, her scalp blistered and black in most places. Her head was still smoldering. She was completely naked and smeared with blood from head to toe. Her right hand was missing and from the stump more blood spurted. Blood was everywhere. She grinned and gnawed on what looked like a human finger. Perhaps her own.

On the stove, in a large steel pot, human body parts, feet, hands, and various other extremities, boiled and frothed. And on the table was a feast only suitable for Hannibal Lecter. A hand, fingers, what looked like a man's bicep and toes. And laying near a blistered and boiled finger lay something half eaten. Something they would later discover as a p.e.n.i.s.

And still the woman with the smoldering, burnt head continued pacing back and forth, never even noticing the police officers standing and watching with disgust in the kitchen's small archway.

The woman, who turned out to be Susan Bright-a missing teen who had been gone for over two months, simply fell dead when one of the officers touched her. They got the other people out safely, all were horribly dehydrated. And behind the wooden door with the single deadbolt, a man, cut to pieces. Most of the pieces, and most certainly the p.e.n.i.s, were to be the woman's feast for the night.

Yum-Yum.

Your Tender Loving Touch.

By Danny Hill.

Police were baffled on responding to a call from a worried neighbor regarding the whereabouts of James Collinwood of Hartington Road, Staffordshire. The worried neighbor, an elderly lady naming herself as Mrs. Wilshaw, had remarked over the telephone that she had neither seen nor heard from Mr. Collinwood for nigh on two weeks. What worried her most, she explained, is that poor Mr. Collinwood had only lost his wife-that poor, poor man-to a dreadful illness just weeks before. The police-operator thanked Mrs. Wilshaw and commended her for her show of concern, before a.s.suring the thoughtful neighbor that the matter would be dealt with promptly.

Later that evening, due to a lack of response from Mr. Collinwood's property, and also due to the concern for his mental and emotional safety, the police applied a ram to remove his front door from its hinges.

By then, however, it was far too late.

The team of officers, highly trained in these scenarios, searched the house and found Mr. Collinwood in his upstairs bedroom, blatantly dead. One senior officer, experienced in these matters, surmised that Mr. Collinwood had been dead for three or four days. He didn't need the pathologist's professional opinion to guess as much. The only light in the dingy bedroom offered itself as a pale drift from the slight gap in the dark, thick curtain fabric.

The deceased was positioned on a double-bed, arms spread out on either side in a gesture of acceptance, dressed in light-blue-and-white striped pajamas. From the deceased's mouth a thick blue tongue lolled out obscenely; the eyes bulging from their sockets, eternally frozen in grave terror.

Police would later go on to report the nauseating stench of rotten meat, the overall stuffiness of the room, as though air had not been let in for days, and the copious amount of litter strewn across the carpet. It seemed as though Mr. James Collinwood had been living reclusively in the room for weeks prior to his death.

Perhaps the most alarming thing about the scene was the discovery of a severed arm lying next to Mr. Collinwood. From where the severed limb should have met with its shoulder, the humerus bone protruded repulsively, to the other end, the hand's nails had been manicured carefully. Beneath the nails, however, seemed to be an abundance of dirt. On witnessing the tableau, one younger officer turned distinctly pale and promptly vomited. Detectives would later discover the arm had once belonged to the deceased's dead wife.

But perhaps the most baffling aspect of all to detectives investigating the case was the subsequent coroner's report, which delivered a verdict of death to Mr. James Collinwood by strangulation. There had been no evidence of any third-party involvement at the scene: no signs of forced entry, no statements from any residents of Hartington Road that indicated Mr. Collinwood had any other friends visit his house over the course of the few weeks leading up to his death.

Baffled, after weeks and weeks of intense investigation, fruitlessly trying to fit together the pieces of the last weeks of Mr. Collinwood's life, the police delivered the verdict of suicide by manual strangulation and closed the case. But certain questions remained open, and the mystery would cloud Staffordshire Police's detectives for years to come.

Grief can be highly underestimated. Although the death of a loved one affects all of us, for others the absolute grief can mean the final weight to tip the balance into insanity. Words of comfort and well-meaning plat.i.tudes simply do not cut it. Some people will go to strange and extraordinary lengths to regain what has been cruelly taken away.

It had been almost a week since the death of his wife. James Collinwood stared down at the dead body of his wife, positioned elegantly in her coffin. The funeral director had done a remarkable job. Barbara's peaceful expression in death seemed so appropriate, thought James, such a faithful testament to the woman she was in life. Barbara had eventually lost her brave year-long battle against a particularly virulent brain tumor. During the latter days of her fight, Barbara had seemed almost unrecognizable from his wife of twenty-four years. It had pained him just to look at her.

Yes, the undertaker had done a remarkable job preserving her. James reached for her hand, noted its coolness, the alabaster complexion of them; her nails had been manicured and painted immaculately red, just as he*d specifically required. James lowered his head softly and lifted his wife's hand to the side of his face, closed his eyes.

Close family members and friends, all dressed in black, lowered their heads in respect. The coffin was placed in the center of James's cluttered living room. The well-wishers sat around the perimeter of the room on sofas, cramped together on armchairs and perched on hard-backed plastic chairs borrowed from the nearby village hall, balancing delicate teacups and saucers on their knees precariously; the rattle of china and the hum of nearby traffic the only distractions to a tenuous air of tranquility. The pale afternoon sunshine forced itself through the room's tiny window; dust motes danced frenetically in its glare.

"How I will miss you," James whispered, still holding his wife's hand to his face. "What I will miss most of all... is this." He swept her hand sensitively against his cheek, enjoying her touch, her floral scent. Remembering his audience, he gently lowered her hand back inside the coffin and faced the gathering. James had the appearance of a man that had not slept for days, jowls hanging loosely and wispy black hair, graying at the temples, disheveled and untrained. The whites in his eyes were bloodshot red. "If you wouldn't mind," he addressed the a.s.sembly, "I would like a few moments to spend alone with my wife."

Harmonized murmurs of agreement and hasty rattles of china soon followed as his close family respected his wishes, all leaving in single file by the front door. Then James was once again alone with his wife.

Good, he thought. At last. Now it was time to get busy.

Amputating Barbara's arm had not been as easy as James had expected. The job had to be done cleanly and quickly, as not to arouse suspicion from other friends and family members. Without delay, he attached a tourniquet across his wife's upper arm, fastening it tightly to stem the already vast bleeding of the embalming fluid.

Now came the tricky part. Using a saw against her right shoulder blade, James set about removing the arm. The noxious tang of decomposition gases beneath her flesh almost made him gag. He fought back the rising bile in his throat with a grubby handkerchief from his pocket. Separating the upper limb's humerus bone from the scapula and fibrous humeral head proved extremely difficult; he could not allow the resonating sounds of crunching bones and wet, squelching noises of tendons snapping distract him from his work. After all, his guests were only a few feet away.

When the process had been completed, he removed the arm and went into the kitchen, placing it in his freezer's top shelf, using the s.p.a.ce he had cleared earlier. From the fridge he grabbed a thick, foot-long German sausage he had acquired from the butcher's earlier that morning, and set about replacing his wife's arm with the meat. After carefully disguising the sausage in the white silk of the coffin's interior decor, he relaxed. After all that hard work he had developed quite a sweat. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief and cleared a few wispy strands away from his forehead. For all the world to see, he was a man that had simply just been racked with tears of grief. They would have no idea.

Quite perversely, under the circ.u.mstances, he felt a flutter of pride for a job well done. There was no way anybody could possibly notice any signs of a disturbance in the coffin.

For the first time since his beloved Barbara had pa.s.sed away, he could actually afford a little smile to himself.

James had always found funerals such insipid, tedious affairs, and found his wife's was no exception. The clenched fist of emotion in his chest was not of grief, but of hatred for the sanctimonious family members of his wife's side, crammed into their pews in cheap black suits and frocks, dabbing at crocodile tears with frilly handkerchiefs. Their hypocrisy in the face of the Lord amazed him. Especially Barbara's sister, Joan, sitting at the far end of his pew, sobbing ridiculously and wearing a preposterously large hat with a tattered veil; the vile woman had not even extended the offer of a Christmas card over the last seven years, let alone a visit. The priest's monotonous recitals of pa.s.sages from the Old and New Testament's only served to reinforce James' inner-la.s.situde.

Barbara's favorite Beach Boys song G.o.d Only Knows and the burial did offer James some respite, however. As each second came to pa.s.s he knew he would soon, once again, be alone with his wife's touch upon his face. The added knowledge that his earlier endeavor had gone undetected also served as some comfort.

"The world could show nothing to me..."

He had to admit to himself that his brother's wife, Catherine, had done a tremendous job in organizing the catering for the wake. Nonetheless, James quickly became tired of his guests, their cliched sympathies, the social awkwardness and bleeding-heartedness that only a death elicits.

"So what good would living do me? G.o.d only knows what I'd do withooout youuuu..."

James, standing at the bar, dreamy with alcohol, remembered the days of his youth. Barbara and he had just started courting. He had acquired his first car-a terrible old banger it had been. Oh, how we'd laughed!-and the pair had agreed to visit the countryside, in a place near Buxton. Quiet, serene. Sleeping silently under the stars. Barbara twining slender fingers through his hair-thick hair it had been back then-and he basking in the warm glow of her fingertips as she smoothly caressed his face. He had fallen in love at that moment. At that precise nanosecond in time. How many people could recall the first time they'd fallen in love?

James squeezed his exhausted eyes closed, then opened them again. The last of the party was beginning to filter outside into the cold night air. Oh darling, he thought, it won't be long. Not long before I can once again feel the warmth of your touch. Your tender loving touch.

That night, slightly unsteady through drink, James retrieved the limb from the freezer and carried it off to bed. He changed into his pajamas and turned off the bedside lamp. He snuggled sleepily against the flesh of her palm and pulled the covers up to his chin. The arm rested next to him, the hand propped up against his pillow, next to his face. He felt her fingers revivify from their discomposure, furling frigidly around his hair. In his drunken state he wondered if he were imagining it, but prayed excitedly that he wasn't. He felt the soft stroke of her polished nail against his cheek-cold at first, making him flinch, but soon endurable-and he closed his eyes. He imagined the stars burning above, the distant chirp of crickets and that silly old car.

For the first time in a week, sleep claimed him like rainwater into a drain.

The following two days and nights provided James with consummate happiness. He felt as though they were on their second honeymoon. He would lie in bed until lunchtime ignoring phone calls and his daily work at a local factory, and do absolutely nothing but bask under the soft caress of his wife's hand. Her arm had thawed since its initial sojourn in the freezer, and now the digits moved with a great deal more dexterity and flexibility, regularly pulling itself across James's wispy chest hair to tousle his hair affectionately. As James slept, the limb would cradle itself gently around his shoulder, resting there until he woke.

Occasionally the limb would use its nails to lever itself to his face, a soft index finger curling lightly against his cheek. James did not mind the slight pain as its fingers dug into his skin for purchase. Not at all. The occasional winces of discomfort were a small price to pay for his overall contentment. He was in heaven. He felt as though all his prayers had been answered. If James had wanted for anything, it was for that moment, her touch as he slept and as he woke up, irrespective of her (or its) slight carelessness.

Some days later, however, thoughts jostled in James's mind that the limb was not exactly his wife, but more of an extension of her. In spite of this he quickly pushed them away. It was nit-picking, that's all it was. He was delighted to have her, or it, back. Really he was. No, really. The limb's incapacity for speech really did not bore him at all, not in the slightest. Come to think of it, the limb's incapacity for anything other than its servile indulgence of him did not nuisance James in the least. Even the smell of decay steadily emanating from his wife's arm day by day did not unsettle him. Small sacrifices had to be made, he reasoned. Besides, he would hate to say or do anything that could hurt its feelings.

If, indeed, it had any.

Pretty soon, only a few days after the amputation, the limb began to grate James' nerves. The honeymoon period was beginning to dissipate. James' earlier resolve was diminishing with accelerating pace. But James fought his irritation back. His bouts of insomnia and restlessness as a result of the rising stench from the limb only served the opportunity for it to stroke and caress more frequently and over more sustained periods of time, docilely misinterpreting James's requirements. The limb was unable to interpret facial expressions, did not sense the grimace and rigidity beneath its touch, nor could it see James's tightening lips and wrinkled nose of disgust. So the limb continued with its gross indulgence of James, blatantly oblivious to his growing irritation, heedlessly tightening the knot of irritation in James's chest even further.

One day, the limb demonstrated its ability to stand as it held its arm upright and scurried across the floor on its fingers. James had an idea. As the limb drummed its nails excitedly across the floor, dancing a jig of delight with its new sense of independence, James said, with a mild subtext of irony he was sure the limb would not interpret, "Well done! Bravo! Now why don't you run along and fetch me a nice cup of tea?"

The limb seemed delighted with its new sense of challenge and hopped on its fingers with steadfast exuberance. James, however, relaxed in the luxury of his bed, fluffing his pillows triumphantly and folding his arms behind his head, wondering just how many more tricks the dumb piece of meat could perform for his benefit.

The answer was... quite a few. If truth were told, James hardly had to do anything for those next few days. The limb did everything for him: washed his dishes, brushed his teeth, cooked his meals, and fetched his morning paper from the front doormat. James, adapting quite easily to his new effortless lifestyle, did not even see the need to change channels with the TV remote. What was the point of doing it himself when the limb, subservient as it was, was more than willing to do it for him?

As more demands were bestowed upon it, the limb carried out its tasks energetically and without compromise. James had noticed the limb's skin beginning to darken into a grayish color, small chunks of rotting flesh dropped out of its stump, and the smell was definitely getting much worse, so much that James wrinkled his nose in disgust whenever it was within even a few yards proximity. James soon banned the limb from his bedroom altogether.

"From now on," he ordered it, holding out a finger in a regimented posture, "you shall carry out your ch.o.r.es downstairs. As far away from my sight as possible. You shall sleep in the dog's basket on the kitchen floor. You shall wake at approximately 7:30 a.m. each morning to prepare my breakfast. And don't forget to knock before you enter my room!"

The limb, as always, did as it was told with absolutely no perception of James' mounting unkindness towards it. As the days went by, the limb appeared more and more tired. Its dynamism was soon supplanted by drudgery in its movements, preferring to drag itself around languidly by its sharp nails than to poise itself upright and skip around merrily.

James had forgotten the exact point in time when he had ceased to refer to the hunk of dead meat downstairs as his wife. He tended to think of it as more a cat or a dog. No, perhaps that was more of an insult to those animals. He quite liked cats and dogs. Dogs could be subservient, yes, but not overbearingly so. Even the limb's servility had begun to bore James. Cats kept themselves to themselves for the majority of time and kept themselves relatively clean. James hadn't even the stomach to look at the limb nowadays.

One night, as the limb went about its ch.o.r.es in the kitchen downstairs, James could hear its nails clattering industriously against the linoleum kitchen floor. The rising irritation in his gut stretched and snapped. Enough was enough.

James leapt out of bed for the first time that week and crept slowly downstairs. The limb was occupying itself with the vacuum cleaner in the living room. James crept slowly behind it and went into the back garden. He found a spade in his tool shed and a spot in the center of his garden and started to dig. He returned to the living room some minutes later to find the limb finishing its ch.o.r.es, dragging itself across the fireplace with a duster in its hand. James crept up and grabbed the limb by its elbow. The limb, unaware of James' purpose, flexed its wrist immediately in panic. Its shock turned to pleasure, seeming pleased that James was touching it again. It tentatively flexed its fingers to stroke James' arm, blatantly misinterpreting its master's intentions. Even as James abandoned it in the garden-casting it forcefully into a deep hole-even as its fingers slowly submerged into a pool of thick, wet mud as James smothered the limb with dirt from his spade, it stretched its palm outwards, begging for reciprocation.

Sleep that night did not come as easily as James had envisaged. Rainfall had not relented, and the tapping of raindrops against his window pane did nothing for his tattered nerves. In a mad, fleeting moment, he had considered that this agitation may have taken root in his conscience, but he doubted it. The limb got what it deserved. It had become a d.a.m.n nuisance! It was then he felt a stirring coming from outside his bedroom door. Though the firm knowledge that he was alone in the house crackled through him like lightening, he dared not move an inch. He heard it again. Shuffling. Moving up the stairs.

James pulled the bedcovers tightly across his mouth, his eyes darting left to right, his breaths draining him in short and harsh gasps. Watching with eyes rigid with fear, he saw the bedroom doork.n.o.b twist, the door open a fraction. He could not see the floor from the end of his bed. Terrified, James then heard the thump-thump of something heavy crawling across the floor. He felt a weight across his bedcovers at the foot of the bed, felt something grabbing for leverage on the fabric, hauling itself up. James strengthened his grip on the bedcovers, the whites of his eyes broadening still. He wanted to scream but the air had completely drained his throat.

The limb moved with such speed and agility across the bed that if James had the capacity to move, or scream, the opportunity would never have presented itself. Its mud-encased fingers were around his throat in a nanosecond, tightening, blocking his esophagus, restricting his air. Outside, the patter of rain against the window pane served as a soundtrack to the scene, and James wrestled with the limb under the glow of soft moonlight offering itself through the gaps in the thick curtains. James desperately battled to pull the limb from its vice-like grip around his throat, kicking out and tugging with all he had. But the limb did not release any pressure until James' kicking feet eased softly and rested on their sides. Pretty soon James rested his arms and they flopped to his sides too. The fight was over.

Unfurling its fingers from James' throat, the limb then positioned itself next to the rigid corpse, elbow angled slightly, its fingers once again lightly caressing a now-prominent stark blue vein of his cheek. One of its fingers trembled slightly, as if it were to sigh. The limb rested then, against its pillow, and it never did move again.

Pumpkin Soup.

by Jessy Marie Roberts.

Kaylee winced as the tip of the long kitchen knife sliced into the pad of her left thumb, splashing blood on to the diced white onion she was chopping on her wooden cutting board. She dropped the blade onto the counter and stuck her thumb into her mouth. She gagged as metallic blood mixed with the sharp, onion tang, a.s.saulting her taste buds.