Stories from 100 Nightmares by K.Z. Morano:
Deep
From his dwelling in the deep, a voice spoke to me.
The Old Ones shall rise again, regurgitated by the sea.
The moon will rise, pregnant with monstrous light.
And on her starless sheet of black, spawn creatures of the night.
And you and I and all of humanity shall be the bricks from which a new era will be built…
Our corrupted flesh and bones piled on top of each other to make monoliths that could impale the sky.
Call me mad. But in my place between death and drugged dreaming, I have seen them… cities built by Fish-men.
Quilt
I’ve always admired grandma’s needlework skills, so evident in her quilt.
The fluffy filler of flesh… the precise pleats of skin origami from carefully cut squares of grandpa’s body.
Lazy daisies grew on his garden bed of meat. Rainbow thread sprouted from his pores as the needle burrows then resurfaces like silver worm.
She died peacefully beneath the warmth of that quilt.
I slipped in beside her, sharing grandpa’s embrace, wishing for a love like theirs.
Suddenly, I understood the profound inward emptiness that grandma must have felt and realized that I needed to make a quilt of my own.
Mommy Makes Dinner
Katie came home from school, the delicious aroma from the kitchen greeting her.
“Mom?” An eerie voice reverberated through the hallway.
Her mother was singing some strange, fragmented lullaby…
The door creaked open.
“Shhh…” Katie’s mother warned. “You’ll wake the baby.”
Part of the blanket fell away to reveal raw turkey cradled in her mother’s arms.
She held it to her breast, lovingly patting its wet pimpled flesh.
“W-Where’s the baby?” Katie quavered.
Her mother’s face split into a demented grin. “Dinner will be ready soon.”
Slowly, numbly, Katie walked towards the kitchen.
Something hissed and sputtered in the oven.
A Greener Earth
The moss spread between her thighs like a strange infection.
She lay in the greenhouse where she had been embraced by the gargantuan flower a fortnight ago… its stamen bulging, throbbing in a monstrous erection, filling her tormented womb with the seed that will refurbish the earth.
She cried in transcendent pleasure and pain as rank weeds and serpentine vines sprouted from her flesh, creating new orifices.
The hell-born vegetation crept towards the panoramas of filth to feed.
They painted the world anew… their mother, along with everyone else, soon diminished into vibrant smears of red across a verdant sea.
The Collector
The pregnant woman viewed the dolls on the shelf.
Boys and girls resplendent in their different ethnic costumes… each masterfully crafted piece her treasure and her torment.
They sat in the dimness, haunting her with their glassy stare and the malevolent twinkling of their button eyes.
Sometimes, the bedroom seemed to fill with their phantasmal screams.
Once, she knew each and every one of them… understood the flutter of their tiny hearts better than her own pulse.
Not too long ago, they were housed inside her womb.
A few months later, a new doll joined her siblings on the shelf.
About the Author:
K.Z. Morano is a writer, a beach bum, and a chocolate addict. She writes anything from romance and erotica to horror and SF, F, and WTF. Her short stories, flash fiction and micro-fiction pieces have appeared in various anthologies, magazines and online venues over the past few months. She blogs at http://theeclecticeccentricshopaholic.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/100Nightmares
Buy 100 Nightmares from these online stores - and it's a fantastically dark delight:
Amazon US / Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/100-Nightmares-K-Z-Morano-ebook/dp/B00JVRJNG0
Lulu- http://www.lulu.com/shop/kz-morano/100-nightmares/ebook/product-21592369.html
Smashwords - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/431783
Goodreads- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22007959-100-nightmares
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