Happy holidays! We’re bringing a passel of gifts for your brainhole so you can survive the mental assaults of the season: Warren Benedetto’s heartbreaking “It’s What’s Inside That Counts,” Eric Kightley’s dating shocker “Headless Rich,” Andrew Robinson’s narcissistic “The Perfect Match,” and a deft cartoon from Lannie Pihajlic.
It’s What’s Inside That Counts
by Warren Benedetto
“I can’t believe I have to miss Pig Day,” my twin brother Jeremy complained. He picked at the white medical tape on the back of his hand. The machine next to his bed whirred as it dispensed another drop of clear medicine into the tube attached to his arm.
I shrugged. “It’s just a dead pig,” I said, downplaying my own excitement about the dissection planned for class that day. Pig Day was a rite of passage for all the fourth graders in our school, the first time that many of us would ever touch—or even see—a real live dead thing. Jeremy and I had been looking forward to it all summer, back when the doctors thought he’d be well enough to return to school by the fall.
“You’re gonna video it for me though, right?”
I patted the iPhone in my pocket. “Definitely.”
“Emily!” my mother shouted from downstairs. “Bus is here!”
“Coming!” I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “Later, nerd.”
His voice followed me down the hall as I ran for the stairs. “Try not to barf!”
“I’m not gonna barf!”
The truth was, I didn’t know how I’d react to the dissection. I couldn’t imagine poking around in a dead pig’s guts. I wondered how they would feel. Would they be squishy and warm, like spaghetti? Or cold and jiggly, like Jello? My stomach turned at the thought.
I was definitely gonna barf.
***
It was a small class, only nine students—ten if Jeremy had been there. We gathered around the large table at the front of Mrs. Collins’ science lab, each of us outfitted in plastic smocks, rubber gloves, medical masks, and oversized goggles. We looked like the world’s youngest, most incompetent surgical team.
On the table was a dead pig in a stainless steel tray. I expected the pig to be pink like the ones in the movies, but it wasn’t. Its flesh was a sickly gray color, with a rubbery consistency that reminded me of a popped birthday balloon.
Mrs. Collins held up a scalpel. “Are we ready?” The other students nodded.
“Wait!” I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my iPhone, quickly swiping to the camera app. “So Jeremy can see,” I explained. I tapped the Record icon. “Okay, ready.”
“All right! Here we go….” The teacher sliced the skin on the pig’s stomach. I watched through the iPhone, grateful to have a screen between me and the pig. It wasn’t so bad that way, more like watching a YouTube video than something happening in real life.
For the next ten minutes, Mrs. Collins expertly dissected the pig, explaining each organ as she went. They all looked lifeless and gray, especially on the video. But then a glint of bright silver caught my eye.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing my finger at the metallic gleam inside the pig.
“Oh, that!” Mrs. Collins said, smiling. “That, young lady, is the timepiece.” She moved aside another organ to reveal what looked like an antique pocket watch inside the pig.
“The timepiece?” I leaned in to get a closer look. “It looks like a watch.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” She dug her fingers under it and lifted it out of the pig. The thin pink membrane holding it in place stretched, then tore. The timepiece slipped out of the membrane and into the teacher’s palm. It was coated in pale pink slime. She delicately wiped it with a rag until it was clean. “Would you like to hold it? I can record for you.”
I nodded and handed her the phone. She placed the timepiece in my hand, then turned the camera toward me. The timepiece appeared to be made of silver, with a complex pattern carved into its case. Underneath its clear glass lens was an intricate timekeeping mechanism with dozens of interlocking gears. A needle-thin second hand teetered on an axle in the center, pointing to a series of tick marks rimming the edge. The second hand was still. I watched it intently for a few seconds, hoping it would start moving. But it didn’t.
“It’s stopped,” I said quietly. My throat suddenly felt tight. I looked up at the teacher. “Mrs. Collins?”
“Yes, Emily?”
“Do I have a timepiece?”
“Why, of course. We all have a timepiece.”
“Will mine stop?”
She nodded solemnly. “Someday. But not anytime soon.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re young. You have plenty of time. Now, Mr. Witherspoon, on the other hand…” she said, dropping the name of our curmudgeonly old principal. The rest of the students laughed. I didn’t.
“Take it back.” I thrust the timepiece at the teacher. “I don’t want it.”
Surprised, she lowered the camera and took the timepiece from me. “Oh. Okay. That’s fine—”
A swell of rage exploded in my chest. “I don’t want to have a timepiece!” I yelled. “I don’t want any of us to have a timepiece. I hate that thing. I hate it!” Tears pooled in the rims of my safety goggles. An awkward silence filled the room. “I need to go home,” I mumbled, suddenly exhausted. “Please, can I go home?”
***
When I arrived back home, I ran up to Jeremy’s bedroom and pushed open the door. An episode of Spongebob was playing on the TV. Jeremy was asleep. I watched him in silence for a moment, listening to the quiet beeping and hissing of the various monitors surrounding his bed. Then I crawled into his bed next to him, being careful not to dislodge the tube in his arm. He stirred. His eyes fluttered open.
“Hey.” His voice was raspy. “How was Pig Day?”
I shrugged. “It was okay.”
“Did you barf?”
“Nope.”
“Then why did you come home early?”
I propped myself up on one elbow and looked at his face. His skin was pale, almost gray. “I just wanted to.”
“What?” He swiped at his nose as if checking for a booger. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” I lay down beside him and stared at the ceiling.
“Can I see the video?”
After a long pause, I said, “Um…”
“Emilyyyy…” he whined. “You forgot?”
“Sorry.”
“You promised!”
“Trust me, you didn’t miss anything.”
“Are you sure?”
I thought about the timepiece, about the thing inside of me—inside of him—ticking away the time, moment by moment, day by day. Then I moved closer to him until I could feel his arm against mine.
“I’m sure.”
Headless Rich
by Eric Kightley
Richard sat down at his MachoMan Groom Station and the HairFairy lasers and recomposition inductionators whirred loudly to life. But then, warning. And then error. And then splat. Or rather, BLAMMO, then splat.
He was just a headless body. Just a stump. Spinal column protruding, arteries and veins seeping and spurting.
Then many things happened quickly. A host of nanonurses swarmed out of his spine and arteries and went to work with their minilasers on the gaping – gosh, is it even right to call it this – wound? Ocular backup stalks telescoped up out of his stump. Tympanic receptors burst out either side of his neck. Another contingent of nanonurses peeled back a flap of flesh over his larynx to expose the freshly-installed vocalistic reverberator.
These various telemetries interfaced with the ButtBrain® cognition simulator installed in his right cheek, which in turn loaded up the most recent neural model, dumped two minutes prior to the minor technical difficulty for which MachoGroom bore no legal responsibility as per the end user agreement.
He looked at himself in the horror-movie mirror. Shit. He was going to have to cancel his date. His stalks drooped dejectedly.
Three minutes later he was back in front of the mirror wearing a new outfit. Well, it was the same outfit (thank God he wore black), only with a few extra touches to help take the edge off. On top of his stump he had gingerly arranged an ugly sort of bowl-shaped wig. It was part of a Beatle costume he’d bought for Halloween the year before. What a flop that had been. All night he’d been explaining how the Beatles were these primitive deity-figures said by some early humans to have literally invented all of music. He’d also bought a foam sword to symbolically reenact the ritualistic sacrifices that would take place, on the spot, should an ancient humanoid fail to provide sufficiently compelling worship in the form of lyric recitation or exuberant praise when challenged to do so by a healthy Beatle-loving peer. No sword for the date. Turns out women don’t like strong men after all; lesson learned, Cheryl.
Over the wig he had positioned some black sunglasses. He adjusted the plastic hair around his bionic appendages and took a long mournful look at himself in the mirror. Well, at the parts of himself he could see through the splattered gore and arterial segments and bone fragments and gray matter. The CleanyBoy stood unmoving in the corner like, Yeah right. Finally, Richard stood resolutely, collected his things, and walked to the door. But then, hand-on-handle hesitation. He opened the InstaJudge dating app and updated his bio: 6’2” 5’5”. Beedeeboop. Match lost. Beedeeboop. Match lost. Beedeeboop beedeeboop beedeeboop. The app showed a pixelated hand giving him the finger, and then shut down of its own accord. Richard sighed, all GUHHHH, and went to the kitchen to retrieve the paper towels and GlassEx.
The Perfect Match
by Andrew Hart
“Where do you want him?”
“You can just pop him out right here.” Greggory T. Archer observed the delivery man open the back of the truck and take out a dark cylinder with frosted glass which he rolled out onto the lawn.
“Here good?”
“Yes, yes that’s fine. Just get on with it, will you.”
“Sure thing boss.” Breathless with anticipation, Greggory watched as the delivery man unsealed the cylinder, letting a small bit of smoke escape out the sides.
“You have no idea of how long I’ve waited for this,” said Greggory.
The delivery man gave him a lazy, almost indifferent look. “Yes, our customers are always very excited. Did you read the passage about liability?”
“Of course I did. Company isn’t responsible if something goes wrong, right? Blah, blah, blah. The usual banal stuff.”
“I’m glad you’re familiar with our policies,” the delivery man said in a dry voice. “And remember, all sales are final. No returns.”
“I’m aware,” said Greggory with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Well then on behalf of the Me and Me Corporation, let me just say thank you for your busine–”
“I’ve been through six marriages, you know,” said Greggory.
“Um, okay.”
“They all failed. My therapist said that I was the problem. Oh yes, it was my fault!” Greggory spat the words out like he couldn’t wait to get rid of them. “So naturally I fired my therapist. And after I did that, I had a realization.”
“Do tell,” the delivery man said with a sigh.
“I realized that I wasn’t the problem. It was them! All of them. I was blameless. No, not just blameless. I was the solution!” Greggory took a handkerchief from his vest pocket and dabbed at his brow. He always got too excited when explaining to others how something could not possibly be his fault.
Just as he had finished talking, the cylinder began to pry itself open on its own accord and out stepped a naked man, a handsome fellow with close-cropped dark hair and a smirk on his face. He was the spitting image of Greggory T. Archer. And that was because he was Greggory T. Archer.
The delivery man’s eyes darted back and forth between the two.
“Alright, well… enjoy,” he said, taking the now-empty cylinder and loading it back into the truck. Before he got in the truck and drove away, Greggory thought he could see the delivery man shaking his head. Greggory curled his lip in contempt. He wouldn’t get it. Most people never would.
The two Greggories faced one another. God, he’s beautiful, thought the original Greggory.
“I suppose you know why you’re here?”
“Of course,” said the other Greggory.
“Good, good.”
“And may I say what a glorious idea. I’m so glad we thought of it.”
“Well, not we,” said the original Greggory.
“I’m you. So yes, we.”
Greggory felt his irritation pique at being talked back to by his own clone but he tried to keep a lid on it. This was a happy, joyous day and he would not see it spoiled. “Let’s not argue over semantics. I’m just glad you’re here.”
“As am I.”
“Before we go any further, we have to devise a name for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“How about Greggory-Two?”
“Derivative and unimaginative.”
“Rude and condescending.”
The two beamed at one another. Greggory felt understood in a way that he never had before.
“I think I’d like to go with Greggory-One.”
“You just didn’t want to be number two, did you?”
“Precisely.”
“Excuse me?” It was the voice of his neighbor Marge, a slightly plump woman in her fifties. She was watching the two of them with something approaching abject horror which both Greggories couldn’t help but be amused at.
“Yes?” they said together.
“Why is there a naked doppelganger of yourself standing on your lawn?”
Greggory looked at Greggory-One. “I almost forgot that you don’t have clothes on.”
“As did I.”
“Looking good by the way.”
“I try to keep in shape.”
“I know.”
“Would you please get that naked man off your lawn and into your house?” said Marge.
“Now Marge, with an attitude like that we won’t be inviting you to the wedding,” said Greggory-One.
“No, we will not,” agreed Greggory.
***
In candlelight, they dined. There was tension in the air, but of a good sort, and Greggory thought what a splendid idea this had all been.
“We’ve done quite well for ourselves,” said Greggory-One, his eyes admiring the ornate and rather expensive trappings of the room and house around them.
“Well, I have,” said Greggory, annoyed at his clone’s insistence on taking credit for his achievements. But he wanted the evening to go well, so he let it go. “So, tell me about yourself. Hobbies?”
“Crocheting, playing golf, going to the opera and correcting people on the smallest most inconsequential matters even when they don’t want me to.”
“Especially when they don’t want you to.”
“Yes.”
“It seems we have similar interests.”
“I never would have guessed.”
Greggory looked across the table at Greggory-One and the two of them locked eyes. The chemistry. The electricity! He’d never experienced anything like it with another person before.
“What was your childhood like?”
“I grew up with an overbearing mother that forced me into showbiz which crippled me emotionally but also made me fabulously wealthy so all in all I’d call it a wash.”
“What a life.” Greggory paused here. “You really do have all my memories don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Didn’t you hate the way mother used to call us Greggie?”
“Hated it.”
“Of course I was sad when she died.”
Greggory-One smiled and shook a finger at him. “And a little glad too.”
“I can’t slip anything past you, can I?”
“Not a chance.”
“You know, talking to you, it becomes even more clear why all of our relationships never worked out.”
“Yes, because the other person wasn’t us.”
“Took the words right out of my mouth.”
“Yes, because they were my words as well.”
“God, you’re perfect.”
“I know.”
***
They retired to the bedroom and it was here that Greggory began to feel a little nervous but was relieved by the fact that if he was feeling nervous then Greggory-One must be too. It was so nice, so easy to be with someone when you always knew exactly what they were thinking.
They stood before the bed and looked at one another.
“I don’t want to rush this.”
“Neither do I.”
“So maybe we should just start off with a kiss.”
“Yes, just one.”
They leaned forward and their lips touched. So, that’s what I taste like, thought Greggory. He hadn’t known what he had been missing all these years. They broke apart.
“You’re good at that.”
“Right back at you.”
They gave each other matching grins and then both of them looked towards the bed. Greggory moved to take the right side.
“Excuse me?” said Greggory-One.
“What?”
“The right side of the bed is mine.”
Greggory looked at Greggory-One. “No, it’s not.”
“It’s always been mine though.”
“No, it hasn’t. You’re a clone.”
“There’s no need to be nasty. And how can you be sure that you’re not the clone?”
“I see what you’re doing here.”
“And what am I doing?”
“The whole I’m-really-the-original shtick. Well, I’ve got news for you buster. We don’t tolerate outdated sci-fi cliches in this household.”
“If you say so. All I know is that I have all the same memories that you do and one that is clear as day is that I always get the right side of the bed.”
“And so do I!” Greggory nearly shouted. He put a hand to his temple and rubbed it. Why was his clone being so difficult? “Look, both of us can’t have it.”
“I’ve never slept on the left side of the bed in my life. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Of course you can because you’ve never slept, period.”
“Technically true but that’s not how it feels. How about we try for a compromise?”
Greggory felt the blood rush to his head. “How could you say that to me? You know I think that’s a dirty word.”
“Yes, I don’t even know why I said it,” Greggory-One looked almost ashamed, but he recovered quickly. “In that case, I’m taking the right side of the bed, whether you like it or not.”
Greggory-One moved towards the bed.
He had tried to take credit for his achievements. Then he had tried to pass himself off as the original instead of the clone. And he had used that filthy, filthy word. The C-word. Now this. It was too much. He’d had enough.
Greggory stepped in front of his clone. “Don’t you dare.”
“Or what?”
“God, why are you such an asshole?”
“Do you really want me to answer that question?”
The two Greggories stared at one another.
***
When the police walked into the bedroom, Greggory gave them a helpless look. The two men stared at him and then at the body of Greggory-One lying on the floor several feet away. Blood was pooling beneath him.
“It wasn’t my fault,” said Greggory. One of the police officers walked over to Greggory-One and turned him over and when he saw the face, his nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Actually, it looks like it was your fault. Another clone-related homicide. Will they ever end?” said the police officer to the other one, who shrugged as if such a thing was just an immutable fact.
“I think that maybe,” began Greggory, “this was an absolutely terrible idea.” He sighed. “Who could have guessed?”
About the Creators
Warren Benedetto writes dark fiction about horrible people, horrible places, and horrible things. He is an award-winning author who has published over 250 stories, appearing in publications such as Dark Matter Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, and The Dread Machine; on podcasts such as The NoSleep Podcast, Tales to Terrify, and Chilling Tales For Dark Nights; and in anthologies from Apex Magazine, Tenebrous Press, Scare Street, and many more. For more information, visit warrenbenedetto.com and follow @warrenbenedetto on Twitter and Instagram.
Frankenstein monsters don’t get enough genre love. How would you revive the Frankenstein trope in the 21st century?
I would create a monster constructed entirely from human flaws: cruel, unfunny, dishonest, disloyal, incurious, amoral, sexist, racist, xenophobic, narcissistic, selfish, and insecure. Then I would have it run for president.
Which word do you think is most overused in the language right now, and which word is least appreciated?
I’m gonna go with a phrase instead of just a word: “What is this place?” It’s a phrase that you’ve heard in scores of movies and TV shows, yet it’s something no real person has ever said in real life. (Props to my friend Dave Smith for making this observation and for keeping track of every mention he hears in a massive spreadsheet.)
As for the least-appreciated word, it’s definitely “phlogiston.” Back in the days before people knew things, scientists attempted to explain fire by postulating that flammable objects contained a substance called phlogiston that was released when they burned. Oxygen was originally called “dephlogisticated air.” It’s such a spectacularly ugly word, and it doesn’t get used nearly enough in casual conversation nowadays.
Warren’s story was originally published in Fantasy Magazine in May 2023.
Eric Kightley is a writer and data scientist in the Bay Area. His works of fiction include this piece (!) as well as his thesis, “Stokes, Gauss, and Bayes Walk Into a Bar”. He’s hard at work on his first collection of short stories, described by ChatGPT as having a “breathtaking lack of coherence and structure”.
Frankenstein monsters don’t get enough genre love. How would you revive the Frankenstein trope in the 21st century?
Robots, for sure. I’m thinking Frankie wires a webcam up to a raspberry pi, tapes on a couple of tasers on selfie-sticks, and then hot-glues the whole getup onto a roomba stuffed into a baby-sized Pikachu costume.
If you had a hammer, would you hammer in the morning, and all goddamned day, or just idly as a novelty? What would you hammer?
If I had a hammer, I would hammer in the dead of night. I can’t tell you what I would hammer; that’s a secret. Unrelated feedback: it would be helpful if you also offered a shovel in one of your prompts.
This is Eric’s first fiction publication. He donated his story for your enjoyment. Thanks, Eric!
Lannie Pihajlic is a Coloradan artist and writer who occasionally dips his toes in cartooning. He is happy to do his part in fighting the good fight making human-generated comics, art and stories. His work has been in The Worlds Within, Sci-Fi Lampoon and Radon Journal.
Our official position is that zombie apocalypses are no longer even vaguely fun now that we’ve been through a real pandemic. Going forward, how should zombie-fixated authors update their work to reflect the post-pandemic reality and inject MORE FUN?
This is a fun question reminding me of Shaun of the Dead. I think the pandemic revealed quite a bit about us humansies. This could be great fodder for a zombie apocalypse story, injecting 100% pure, unadulterated, uncut F-U-N into zombie stories! One, trust for authorities/institutions is at an all-time low. Many discount any warnings, health recommendations, etc… in a zombie apocalypse, it’d be fun to watch people denying what is happening and doing whatever they want. Openly pretending things are not that bad.
“But this zombie is trying to chew off my face?”
“Just ignore him, Chad. And it’s cringe to call them zombies!”
Meanwhile many people would believe any alternative explanation for why there is a zombie apocalypse taking place, how to handle it and why everything is A-OK. It would be Conspiracy City all over again. This would birth all sorts of ‘fun’ ‘charismatic’ leaders, like Master Blaster from Mad Max. These ‘leaders’ would tell everyone what to believe, how to act and why they NEED their zombie repellents or products.
If you had to sing the plea of humanity for continued survival, what would the chorus be and what existing melody would you use?
I picked Don McLean’s song “American Pie.”
Don’t say, bye-bye, humans should die
please don’t bury, in no hurry, just let us survive
You good ol’ aliens should try our donuts and pie
Singin’ “Humans have thumbs and respond to stimuli
Maybe we won’t sentence them to die”
Lannie’s comic was originally published in Sci-Fi Lampoon.
Andrew Hart is a social worker by trade who writes in their free time. They’ve previously been published in Everyday Fiction and Mystery Tribune.
If you were to write a ten-volume epic fantasy starring a punctuation mark, which would it be and why? What would the one-sentence plot summary be?
My epic fantasy series would be about the Oxford comma. The first three volumes would feature the Oxford comma as the hero of the piece, the next four would reveal it to be a villain and the final three would give it a quasi redemption arc where it’s revealed that the Oxford comma is capable of both good and evil.
If you could rename any person, living or dead, in all record and memory, who would it be, and what would their new name be?
I would rename Poe Dameron from the most recent Star Wars trilogy. His new name could be Hoe Cameron. Or Toe Sameron. Anything but Poe Dameron.
Illustrations sourced from Pixabay artists volfdrag, Momentmal, susannp4, and fevol. Composited by editor D.R.R. Chang, a designer and game writer from Austin, Texas. His short fiction has appeared in Avast, Ye Airships! and the Cryptopolis science fiction anthology, and he cowrote a free retro JRPG some people raved about.
About the Sponsor
This free Squid story was brought to you by Outer Freakwave. “Underground Fantasy Stories For Discerning Customers, and To Hell With The Rest Of You is an off-the-grid gallery of short stories re-sculpting the boundaries of Fantastic Literature. A haunted language challenges misguided researchers, wildlife thrives in a flooded temple, homeless volunteers negotiate the divide between modern cities and mythological entities, and more scenarios tease the reader’s sense of Genre and its exciting curvatures. Exclusively for individuals of fabulous taste.”
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