Editor’s Note: We appreciate all of this year’s story submissions. It’s always a difficult choice to make, but
thank you all for your time and effort. In addition to the honorable mentions listed here, contest winners
can be found online here.
Welcome to the Dawg House!
By Erin Lovett
Welcome to the Dawg House! Athens’ top-rated Airbnb for game-day stays. We hope you love your stay as much as we love hosting you. Please read the checkout instructions VERY CAREFULLY and be sure to follow the instructions AS WRITTEN. The Dawg House is a historic home, with all the quirks that come with it, and our checkout instructions are designed to maintain the precarious balance of modern comforts and historic charm. Thank you for choosing the Dawg House, and as always, Gooooooo Dawgs!
CHECKOUT INSTRUCTIONS (READ CAREFULLY!!!)
All dishes must be loaded into dishwasher. Dishwasher cycle must be started.
Wash and dry all sheets and towels. DO NOT LEAVE WET TOWELS IN WASHER.
Remove all trash and place in outdoor bins.
Empty refrigerator of all outside food and beverages.
Place votive candle on the FIRST STEP of basement staircase. (Votive candles and matches are located in the curio cabinet to the left of basement door.)
Checkout time is 11 a.m., votive candle MUST be lit before 11 a.m.
Recite the Latin included in your welcome packet AFTER lighting votive candle. All three lines must be recited OUT LOUD.
In the curio cabinet you will also find a pair of gold embroidery scissors. One guest of your choosing MUST remove a lock of hair and lay it on the FIRST STEP of the basement staircase. For bald guests, blood is an acceptable substitute, however—
“Okay, I’m gonna stop you,” Tanner interjected, dropping the pile of linens he had been carrying across the spacious drawing room. “These checkout instructions are way over the top.”
Morgan looked up from the fainting couch from which she had been reading aloud. The instructions had a weathered look to them, like they’d suffered more than a couple beer spills, the pages bound together with an itchy-looking twine. Almost a farmhouse-chic vibe, Morgan thought, generously.
“This is worse than that place in Nashville,” Tanner went on. “The one that made us mow the lawn? Remember that?”
“I know it’s a lot,” Morgan said, “But there’s a bit at the end here about dire consequences…”
“How much?” Tanner interrupted. “A hundred and fifty bucks? We should just eat the cleaning fee and head back to Atlanta.”
He chugged the last dregs of Jittery Joe’s coffee from a paper cup as Morgan flipped the instructions over and froze—page after page of headlines had been cut from the Athens Banner-Herald, some yellowed and warped with age, a few appearing far more recent.
UGA players charged with drunk and disorderly conduct
Georgia quarterback injured in reckless driving incident
3 players charged with assault after downtown bar brawl
“What the hell kind of scrapbook is this?” Morgan whispered, flipping through tragedy after tragedy—accidents, felonies, death. On each, Morgan noticed a frenzied scribbling—the date of each article, circled in red.
“Dire consequences,” she repeated to herself, lingering on a photograph of a crushed sedan wrapped around a telephone pole.
Tanner was carrying their suitcases from the bedroom when he saw her standing before the basement staircase, votive candle in one hand, matches in the other.
“You can’t be serious,” he laughed. “The hosts are clearly messing with us. It’s probably a Halloween thing. I’m pretty sure next week there’s a dog costume parade that goes right past this house.”
Morgan’s gaze was fixed on the darkness at the bottom of the staircase. There was a murkiness to it, like deep water. You couldn’t stop yourself from wondering what waited beneath the surface.
A step creaked below them—Morgan and Tanner froze.
A second creak. Closer.
“Just light the damn…” Tanner started, but the creak of a third step pulled the air from his lungs and he sprinted off, knocking Morgan forward, the candle and matches flinging from her hands and clattering down the stairs. She ran.
In the car, doors locked, Morgan and Tanner sat unmoving, listening to the soft whir of the AC.
“We’re okay,” Tanner said. He limply patted Morgan’s knee.
Soon their Bronco was speeding out of town, red G flags fluttering frantically. They couldn’t have seen the Mustang hurtling towards them through a red light, the Georgia wide receiver behind the wheel reading a text from a friend congratulating him on another win. In the Dawg House, the discarded pages fluttered in the musty draft of the open basement. From the darkness came a sharp crack, followed by the fitful shudder of a flame. It flickered for a moment, then with a raspy exhalation of breath, was gone.
Grit2
By Lucy K. Ralston
Paper record of entity.
Source: Flagpole Magazine.
Names redacted to protect the innocent.
Item #1: Grub Notes, “An Unexpected Resurrection,” 1/3/2024
by Hxxxxxx Bxxxx
January 3, 2024
GRIT2 (1999 Prince Ave., in Athens, 706-xxx-xxxx): Pronounced “Grits,” this surprise opening in a previously unnoticed building on Prince Avenue has filled a hole in the hearts of Classic City vegans and vegetarians. Serving classic recipes from The Grit, a long-beloved and greatly-mourned local restaurant, Grit2’s service and location leave something to be desired. However, it’s possible that the cold reception and crumbling interior are merely a further wink and nod to the late and great restaurant that Athens knew and loved. So long as you can stand a cold reception, the Golden Bowl is as good as ever, and their new locally-sourced protein replacement is a game changer!
Item #2: Facebook Comment, 1/3/2024
Jxxxxxx Gxxxxx
This is NOT us. The Grit was a special place, and it still breaks my heart that it was time to say goodbye, but whoever opened this business has not been in contact with us, and does NOT have the right to use our recipes or name. Our lawyers have been alerted.
Item #3: Facebook Comment, 1/7/2024
Jxxxxx MxWxxxxx
A lot of people have asked me, “Is the Grit back?” Ask yourself this: When you go in for lunch and settle on the bar stools, do you see anything in their eyes? People used to say that the staff at the grit was surly. No. They were artists, and it showed. The people at this place aren’t even people.
Item #4: News Features, “Invisible Crime Wave in ACC,” 1/10/2024
by Bxxxx Axxx
January 10, 2024
A disproportionate number of disappearances in Athens-Clarke County has the city on high alert, with nine missing persons reported in the past week. All nine are residents of ACC, and were last seen leaving the downtown area on foot between 12–3 a.m. Friday. A special meeting has been called as the commission, local police and community leaders plan a response to this rash of disappearances.
In lieu of a Classifieds section for this issue, photographs and descriptions of the missing have been included.
Item #5: Facebook Comment, 1/10/2024
Exxx Lxxxxx
Just heard it’s up to 10. Walk in groups!
Item #6: Grub Notes, “Grit2’s Baffling Existence,” 1/10/2024
by Lxx Sxxxxxx
January 10, 2024
Less than two years after The Grit shut its doors for the final time, our town’s beating heart got an unexpected defibrillator jolt: Grit2. As interest and unrest grow surrounding the mysterious restaurant, one question remains at the forefront: Is Grit2 breaking the law? When looking into local records for an answer, the situation only grows stranger. The health department doesn’t have an inspection on file for Grit2, or any record of it existing. Neither does the fire department.
“Our legal team has tried to get in touch with their management,” said former Grit owner Jxxxxx Gxxxxx, “but it’s like there’s no one to get in touch with.”
Item #7: Letters to the Editor, “Letters: Asteroid Interference, UGA Backpay, Grit2, and More,” 1/10/2024
Grit2 and Hell Pathways
by j. gxxxx
January 10, 2024
Don’t go there. I don’t give a shit about the legal situation, or the drama, or the Grit Truthers, or any of that. I see the line out the door of that place while I’m biking in to work. You all want to be part of something, but don’t you all know what food is? Cooking is intention. Look at that sign out front and tell me they mean well.
As a side note: I KNOW what “protein replacements” can do. They can’t do that.
[Image Description: A hand-lettered chalk sign on the sidewalk outside Grit2 reading “Feeding You Athens!”]
Item #8: City Dope, “Grit2: Burned to the Ground,” 1/17/2024
by Hxxxxxx Bxxxx
January 17, 2024
Overnight on Monday, controversial new (old?) restaurant Grit2 burned to the ground. Police and fire department are investigating the wreckage to see what they can make of what little is left behind. The restaurant was closed at the time, meaning it’s likely there were no injuries, but the difficulty of contacting Grit2 management continues with city officials and journalists unable to reach representatives.
Item #9: News Features, “Thirteen Bodies Discovered in Burned Restaurant,” 1/24/2024
by Pxxx MxCxxxxxx
January 24, 2024
We didn’t know. God forgive us, we didn’t know.
The World Famous Bathroom
By Andrew Benzinger
I sensed I’d taken a wrong turn as soon as I followed the masked stranger into the World Famous bathroom. This may sound radical, but never accept an impromptu invitation to see “other worlds eclipsing yours” in a downtown Athens john, no matter how interested you may be. No sooner had I walked into the restroom after them, than I found myself in a corridor of doors of every color and caliber. The layered sewage musk might’ve been a cousin of Cozy Bar’s bathroom (and even now, I wonder whether Cozy Bar’s toilet, too, is connected to the same non-Euclidean corridor).
The ski-masked stranger was nowhere to be found!
Of course, another flaker.
In denial that this wasn’t the bathroom, I tried the door to the left of mine and stepped into a nightmare. At first glance, it seemed a relatively innocuous, cookiecutter café—until I noticed battalions of sundry anime plushies lurking on the walls. An infinite playlist of tinny lofi music for studying and dying to—with the sterile drum track cranked to maximum earache—wafted from speakers in every corner. Not a soul in sight; it may as well have been 1785 on a Sunday. And the world beyond the windows was as impenetrably dark as the interior of Walker’s Pub. Total darkness, that is, except for one thing—a faintly glowing crimson arch floating upside down in the ether.
The sight congealed the blood in my veins.
Hell! I’m in every bubble tea café in Athens!
I clamored back through the door and tried the one opposite, in my frenzy thinking it the way I’d come. Another lethal mistake!
Instead, I discovered another hall, this one painted a pallid shade of pale peach to ensure maximum ennui at a single glance. Hundreds of doors, doors, doors extending away as far as the eye could see. Walmart welcome mats and mini-basketball hoops and chintzy Halloween decorations of Nosferatu, Myers and Morehead peppered the infinite thresholds. Fluorescent strips buzzed endlessly above. And at the exceedingly distant end of the apartment-mausoleum, a window twinkled faint crimson—the upside down arch!
Sweet savior above, I’m in every Landmark Properties!
I whirled around and bolted the way I’d come, through more doors, hoping to reach World Famous. But no, one after the next, the horrors persisted: a Target with exits leading to Marriotts connected to Starbucks to Chick-fil-a, Chick-fil-a, Chick-fil-a (its recurrence must have been my Aligherian punishment for all the birds I had swallowed without a thought), all with that heretical arch glinting in the darkness beyond every window.
I have no idea how long I ran circles in those fart-perfumed liminal hallways, getting further and further away from my World Famous pretzel bites with every step.
Then I found them. Not the pretzel bites but THEM.
I stood on the threshold of a desolate, colossal parking garage harboring not a single car but all the garbage in the world piled among the spaces like lake-fuls of dead fish. Upside down arches flashed in the shadows surrounding the superstructure. And there, seated on a folding chair throne four spaces away, was the masked stranger. They were turned away in a penitent pose, head in hands, sobbing, “Now you see… now you see… you see, don’t you?”
I approached slowly, unnerved all to hell. I’ll never shake that sobbing stranger; some memories only intensify instead of fading.
“Who are you?” I called, edging closer for all my morbid curiosity.
Between mighty sobs, the masked figure whispered, “But-but- you’ll think- hicc– I’m a… a monster..”
They flung their head back and whirled about. In one operatic flourish, they slipped the ski mask off, and beneath—
I fell back on my hands and feet, scuttling away in unmitigated horror, “Jere Morehead!!!”
Morehead rose from his seat and advanced, “No… no… I’m the idea of Morehead! Morehead’s figurehead, physically and legally distinct from Morehead-A!”
“AAHHH!” I screamed, scrambling to my feet in a mad dash for the door. “Whaddya want?!”
“My world’s overflowing—eclipsing yours! Please! Break the cycle! Break the eclipse!”
“Whatever you say!” I screamed as I slammed through the door and somehow—miraculously—found myself in the World Famous bathroom. I shakily returned to the bar and my pretzels, ruffled and smelly but otherwise intact. Then again, how’s that different from any other night on the town? Already the experience was evaporating like a dream in sunlight.
Nevertheless, I’d never try a downtown toilet again. I grabbed a nearby pile of newspapers.
What was Morehead-B blabbering on about, I thought sleepily as I flipped past Red & Black’s legion of football photos and student-factory-farmed-housing-construction-plans to get to Flagpole’s crossword-sudoku.
Then it clicked.
Vermiculture
By Guillermo Zapata
“Do you want to see my worms?” she asked. Good start to a date, I thought, vermiculture’s cool, right?
“Sure,” I replied.
We met on a dating app, but I hadn’t been sure of the vibes, especially when she invited me over to her house. You never know what to expect with those apps, ya know?
She seemed relatively normal, one of those hippie, gardener types, the kind that plants fruit trees, installs raised beds, and pisses off their landlord. I was OK with pissing off landlords. All of us twenty-somethings were pissing off landlords.
She had decorated her house with DIY kitsch and animal bones. A dog skull and most of its spine rested on an entry table, spiraling around a bowl. She looked over her shoulder when she noticed I’d stopped to pick the skull up.
“Where do you get these?” I asked, staring into his eyes. He couldn’t be bigger than a beagle.
“Don’t touch that!” she shouted, her voice sharp. I jumped and looked at her, abashed. She carefully replaced it. “I find them,” she replied, without looking at me. “In the woods, down by the Oconee.” Then she turned back to me with a smile, “Come on; my worms.” She took my hand and an electric current ran from her and up my spine.
Her bedroom was dimly lit by string lights, and she led me to her closet. It was big, two doors opened out like a wardrobe. A quiet, “Woow,” slipped out of me. You have to appreciate a big closet. She slid out a plastic tub.
“You could sleep in that thing,” I said.
She laughed, her back to me. “Yeah,” she replied, unlatching the lid. “I fantasize about that sometimes.”
The worms were larger than I had expected. They looked like one of those snake mating balls, all crawling over each other. Each had to be at least a quarter-inch thick, and they were black. I could only tell them apart from how the light reflected off them.
“I’ve never seen worms like those,” I said, trying to maintain a positive attitude. She gingerly picked one out of the pile and held it up for me. It had to be a foot long.
“They’re a special variety,” she said. “Sandy Creek would get mad if I used their castings in my garden,” she added ruefully, “because of the eggs.”
“Why do you have them then?” I asked, crouching down to get closer. The worm wriggled, straining towards my face.
“They’re my pets,” she replied, pursing her lips at the worm. Without changing her expression, she made eye contact with me. “Do you want to feed them?”
I kind of did. I nodded.
“Great,” she said, winking. “Wait here.” She trailed her fingers across my shoulders as she left. She’s pretty cool, I thought, and I shuffled, still crouching, up to the edge of the tub, curious.
I reached inside as she had. A juicy one had crawled to the top, and as my hand got closer, it nosed toward me. I touched it.
“Hi, worm,” I said, feeling connected with nature, and then, “Ow!” I snapped my hand back. The worm had bit me. I examined my finger, turning it in the faint light. Bit me deep. I stuck it in my mouth, and my eyes refocused on the back of the closet.
Hidden behind her clothes was a shelf. I leaned forward, over the tub, to see. More bones.
I could taste the blood as I teetered a little while picking one of the bones up to bring it out into the light. Another skull. A human skull. Something jabbed my leg, and the leg went limp. I collapsed onto the top of the tub, dropping the skull. It broke.
“I told you not to pick anything up,” my date said, behind me.
“What did you do?” I groaned, trying and failing to kick her off, my body was going numb.
“Bear tranquilizer,” she said calmly. “Works on humans, too.”
I caught a glimpse of her as she picked up my legs and pulled them over the edge of the tub. I fell in, unable to move. The worms began to crawl over me.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’ll be fast. You’ll hardly feel a thing. They’re very hungry.” She picked up the lid and leaned in towards me, wiggling her finger at the worms, “Aren’t you babies?” I had enough time to hear her snap the latches shut.
Just a Superstition
By Dallas Duncan
Josie gave Trip a long, disdainful glare.
“I wouldn’t do it,” she declared.
“Well, nobody asked you, did they?” The retort came from one of Trip’s fraternity brothers; the blonde dressed as a Gator fan, complete with cut-off jorts and a mullet wig. “Geez, Jo, why d’ya have to be so lame?”
She turned her appraisal from Trip to the blonde. “I’m not lame, I’m just not an idiot. C’mon, Trip, don’t be stupid. Let’s go home.”
Trip looked from the expectant faces of his gathered brothers to the annoyed visage of his girlfriend. It was like the old adage of having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, except in this case the angel was dressed as a demon and the devil had all manner of costumes on, since they’d just come from Wild Rumpus. Trip sighed. This was his one chance to really show his brothers what he was made of—at least one that didn’t involve starting a barroom brawl, breaking the law, or getting him expelled.
He winced. Maybe not so much that last one.
Trip squared his shoulders and blew Josie a kiss. “Don’t worry, Jo. Nothing’s gonna happen. It’s just a superstition.”
Josie cussed under her breath as Trip walked under the Arch, cheered on by his so-called brothers.
He was late for class on Monday. Not just skids-in-as-the-teacher-steps-to-the-podium late, but a full 10 minutes into a pop quiz late. As a general rule, Trip isn’t tardy. He got up, got dressed, brushed his teeth, even slid onto the same Orbit bus as every other Monday, Wednesday and Friday that semester. For the life of him, he didn’t know why he wasn’t on time, and now with a zero quiz grade to boot!
“Dr. Evans drops the lowest two quiz grades anyways,” a classmate reassured him.
Trip apologized to the professor after dismissal. “It won’t happen again, Dr. Evans, I promise.”
His professor gave him a kind smile. “Happens to the best of us, Trip. It’s not like you walked under the Arch or anything; I won’t hold it against you. You’ve still got the top grade in this section even with the zero from today.”
The sheepish grin Trip flashed him in thanks hid a lot. It’s just a superstition, he reminded himself. A dumb story they tell the freshmen at orientation.
But he couldn’t get the dumb story out of his head.
Trip got his first D on an essay two weeks later. Trip was an all-A student. He didn’t get Ds. He wasn’t late for class. He most certainly never forgot to pack jeans to change into before chem lab on Thursdays. And he definitely, absolutely did not study the wrong chapters of material for tests!
“I’m going crazy,” Trip told Josie. “I have to keep my grades up if I’m going to get into Grady, and it’s like the whole universe is working against me.”
Josie glowered at him—a not infrequent expression these days—from the other side of their table at Jittery Joe’s. “If you don’t shut up and focus on making slides for next week’s presentation, both of us are going to fail that class. You, because you’re too busy freaking out about not graduating on time, and me, because I can’t concentrate while you’re panicking!”
“But Jo…”
“Shut up, Trip! I told you not to do it, so quit complaining to me!” Josie slammed her laptop shut and walked out of the coffee shop, her temper hotter than the steaming cup of Wake-n-Bake she clutched in one hand.
The young man appeared to have not slept in days and kept tapping his fingers on the edge of her desk as if it was a keyboard. Dr. Lee’s brow furrowed. “Mr. Montgomery, is everything alright? You look like something’s haunting you.”
“I cannot get below a C in this class. I’m applying to Grady for next semester. Can I please do some extra credit or something?”
She felt for him. What was he, 18? Nineteen? A good student; attentive and timely. On test days, though, it was as if Trip sent a body double to her class.
Dr. Lee sighed, “I’ll give you an incomplete. You can make it up over the summer without affecting your GPA.”
Trip stared. “I can’t apply to Grady with an incomplete on my record! That’ll set me back months!”
“It’ll work out,” she promised. “It could be worse—at least you didn’t walk under the Arch.”
Uninvited
By Ben Credle
“There’s something in the attic again,” Amy said. “It took the food out of the little plastic trap, but the trap didn’t go off. So, we’re just feeding it.”
Jason sighed. He knew there was something in the attic. It had kept him up all last night, with the rapid skittering of little claws across the plywood flooring. The lack of sleep had made him pissy all day, he reminded himself. It was just a fact of life in these old Five Points houses. Upside: Walking distance to campus. Downside: They were surrounded by trees and woods, and every living creature had spent almost a hundred years finding sneaky ways to get inside. He’d found snakeskins in the crawlspace. If they left the screened door on the porch open too much, he’d find a bird’s nest in his bike helmet. But the attic was the worst. Mice and squirrels? He’d definitely seen those up there. A raccoon or, God forbid, a possum? He hoped not, but he couldn’t rule it out. He’d seen a spot where the normally fluffy white insulation was matted down and gray, like something had been sleeping there. And there were pecan shells. What the heck was bringing pecans into the attic to eat? He guessed if you thought about it a certain way, people were actually the interlopers here. He was the uninvited pest.
Well, invited or not, he paid for the place, and he was done messing around. Those plastic traps were good; they’d caught five tiny mice last year, the size of ping-pong balls. But it was time to take it up a notch. The previous owners had left one of those old-school wooden and metal traps. It seemed like the kind of thing Larry Munson would’ve used when he wanted to crush a pest with a hob-nailed boot. They probably hadn’t made these since Larry was alive. Jason smeared peanut butter on the trigger plate and cautiously pried back the oversized rusty steel jaw. It felt like it could easily break a finger, or worse.
That night Jason slept fitfully. He was dreaming of being late for a test in a college class he’d never gone to, when the metallic clank woke him up. It was followed by the skittering of claws above him. The clock said 1:26 a.m. He tried to go back to sleep, but his brain played images of some wounded thing dragging the bloody trap around the attic until it died. And probably winding up in some little nook that Jason couldn’t reach, rotting away and stinking up the house. Jason grabbed his glasses and trudged up the stairs.
He opened the attic door as silently as he could and turned on the light, expecting to see or hear something. Nothing; no noises of anything scurrying away. He peered past old boomboxes and Christmas ornaments until he found the smaller plastic trap, untouched. He regretfully committed and stepped inside the attic and pushed the door almost closed behind him. He didn’t need an injured animal running downstairs into the house. It was freezing up here and smelled slightly moldy. He crept past the camping stuff and a rocking chair he was supposed to fix, to check the big wooden trap. It had definitely gone off; he found it upside down, three feet from where he’d set it. There was blood on the edge of the wood. Jason maneuvered toward it, not wanting to see the mess. He wished he’d remembered to bring a trash bag. He tentatively flipped over the trap. Whatever was in it was small and gray. He used his phone flashlight to get a better look. It was a finger. A human finger with a cracked yellow fingernail and gray hairs trailing from the knuckle.
Jason spun when he heard the door close behind him. A stubby little man stood hunched by the door. Long tangled hair covered most of his face, and trailed past his waist, matted with leaves. He wore only what looked like Jason’s old Boy Scout shorts. His feet were bare and almost black, with long yellow curving nails. One hand was bound up in bloody tissue paper and Christmas ribbon, the other held Jason’s fishing knife.
As the man reached his gnarled hand to turn off the light, he croaked, “You owe me a finger.” Then there was only darkness and the skittering of claws…
Mr. Gesceap
By Rhys Lindquist
“I’m tired of these foreigners taking over downtown,” my uncle Billy said to me one day.
I rolled my eyes, assuming he was about to go on another rant. Uncle Billy was the kind of person whose idea of the fall of society was if an Indian guy bought a hotel or something.
“They’re setting up these shops that just sell nothing,” Billy continued. “Not contributing to the economy.”
Now that sounded interesting. As far as I knew, there were plenty of shops downtown that sold something, but none so far that sold nothing. “Nothing?” I asked him.
“Yeah! Nothing! That new place up on Clayton, the one with the wacky signs in the window. Dolly’s kid’s been in there and she says they got nothing on sale.”
I would soon come to learn that the shop in question was recently opened by a Mr. Gesceap, who as far as I could tell was not, in fact, a “foreigner,” but whose unusual name prompted a sense of alienation from people like my uncle Billy.
Mr. Gesceap took a lot of pushback from good old boys who didn’t like his unconventional retail practices and seemingly endless cheer. He defended his store by falling back on one phrase:
“Local businesses are the beating heart of downtown.”
After months of fierce debate online about whether Gesceap’s store was ruining the town, I decided to go see for myself.
Uncle Billy hadn’t been wrong about the signs in the windows. All visible glass was papered over with flyers that looked hand-written. They had odd slogans on them that almost made sense, but didn’t. Things like “EAT MORE VEGETABLES—THE EARTH LOVES THE SKY!” and “GLOBAL WARMING: ALL IT NEEDS IS A HUG!”
I entered, a bell clanging against the door behind me. Mr. Gesceap himself was standing behind a counter, and he seemed to have already been smiling at me before I walked in.
“What can I for you do?” He said. I didn’t catch the mistake at first, not until he kept making more of them. He had an unremarkable accent, but the way he used language was… off.
I opened with, “So… I’ve heard you sell nothing?” Just to see how he would respond.
His smile grew even wider. “We very much sell,” he said. “We sell a lot.”
“Yes, but what?”
“Ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“We are the beating heart of downtown,” Gesceap said earnestly.
“Okay… but do you have anything I can actually buy?”
Mr. Gesceap held out one hand, palm upward. “You can buy of me an idea,” he said. “This idea will never leave you.”
At this point I was figuring it was a pyramid scheme. “How much?” I said.
He put his other hand over his heart… or where his heart would have been, had he been touching the left side of his chest. “However much believes you the beating heart of downtown to be worth,” he said.
I gave him a fiver.
“Come, come.” He pocketed the bill, left his post and led me down a narrow staircase beside the counter. It got dimmer the further down we went, but I could discern a faint light coming from whatever was at the bottom, as well as some kind of intermittent pulsing noise. I assumed it came from a generator, until I saw what it really was.
At the foot of the stairs, hooked up to machines I couldn’t name, much less describe, was an enormous, beating human heart. It dwarfed both me and Mr. Gesceap as we stood side-by-side.
Mr. Gesceap gestured expansively towards the massive organ. “The beating heart,” he said, “of downtown Athens! As long as I have it, will nobody else!”
“As long as I have it, will nobody else!”
Mr. Gesceap’s “idea” stuck with me like he said it would, but my biggest takeaway from the experience was that what he said to me last made a weird kind of sense. It’s been some months now, and while people continue to rail against Mr. Gesceap and his shop that sells nothing, it’s undeniable that the encroaching developers and vulture capitalists have slowed their roll. The only businesses opening up have been operated by locals, and the chains that were there are declining.
From my point of view, I don’t think it’s too difficult to believe that Mr. Gesceap, whoever he may be, really does have the beating heart of downtown. And he doesn’t seem to be such a bad steward.
Aw, Rats!
By Jillian Goodrich
I wouldn’t say I enjoy my job. It’s not my passion, that’s for sure. Sometimes I have nightmares that when my time comes, all the lab rats I’ve tended to over the years will chew me up and drag me down to hell in pieces.
I shouldn’t carry this guilt; it’s not like I’m the one studying them, I just keep an eye on them. Make sure they have food and water. Clean the cages. If anything, they should be grateful that I even have this job. But I am not so grateful. Especially not when I get called in to work while on the way to Wild Rumpus.
Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year, and I was elated when I saw that Travis was scheduled to work tonight instead of me. But they tell me he hasn’t submitted his mid-shift update, and he must be playing hooky.
That’s not like Travis, I think to myself.
I walk up to the vet med building, so angry at Travis that I’m practically stomping now, and swipe my keycard… Aaannnddd swipe my keycard. Nothing. I realize now that the power LED light on the access pad is off. Of course the thought goes through my head to call it a night and head back to the parade, but I really need to keep this job. I fling the door open with far less resistance than I had anticipated and start into the darkness.
I make my way to the locker room under the emergency lights and pull off my chicken costume, replacing it with a set of scrubs. The overwhelming smell of caged animals wafts through the hallway. A new research team has occupied the basement with an abundance of rats. I’m not sure what they’re studying exactly, but I think it has something to do with the effect of different rabies variants on animal aggression.
Travis is nowhere to be seen, so I get started on the cage checks. About five minutes had passed when I began to hear an increasingly loud yet familiar sound coming from the corner of the room.
Scratch…. Scratch…
Looking around I realized how many empty cages had been left behind. Someone did not do their job cleaning them up, and I make a mental note to complain to my supervisor about it. The scratching is getting more frantic now, mirroring my escalating concern. Just as I am about to investigate, I notice a lifeless rat in the cage I am holding.
Scraatch… Sccrraaaatch…
Following protocol, I reach in to separate the rat from the others inside. As soon as my fingers curl around the rat, it comes alive and bites my thumb. Hard. I drop the rat on instinct, but I am too slow. The remaining rats in the cage have a hold of my other fingers now, and I yank my hand out of the cage, flinging their bodies across the room. In a panic, I trip over the hose lines and fall flat on my back.
I pick my head up just in time to see dozens of rats rushing in my direction. I now have an idea why there were so many empty cages. You would be surprised how fast rats can run, but I manage to get my feet under me and sprint to the back corner of the room to the supply closet.
Sccrraaatch… Sccrrraaaaaaatch…
Just as I turn the knob, I realize that the scratching was not coming from the cages, but rather from inside the supply closet. Travis slumps out onto the floor as the fingernail-carved door swings open. He is half conscious and the chunks bitten out of his skin reminds me of Swiss cheese. The bloody scene has paralyzed me with fear long enough for the now hundreds of rats to overtake me and what is left of Travis. In between our screams I swear I can hear the Halloween parade far off in the distance.
Night of Fright
By Jerry Rogers
Dressed up for trick-or-treat on this special night,
he cruises Flagpole‘s Spooky Street to the scariest house,
guarded by ghosts reminding him of horrors felt before.
Waiting for him, she stops her pacing, checks her costume,
her attempted smile tightening into a scowl in the mirror.
Then donning her mask, she answers the knock on the door.
He offers his treats; they secure their masks, depart,
each possessed with impaired vision, a trembling heart.
Remembering bewitching spells cast on this date
and torments of darker events following long after,
when they enter The Globe, their hearts warn, “Beware!”
Despite nightmarish memories causing fear and dread,
struggles with wraiths refusing to remain in their graves,
they leave holding hands, their hearts warm in the chilled air.
Expecting no pranks, bogeymen, or goblins from the past,
they drop all pretense, discarding their disguises at last.
Later, after the Ciné movie with its terror and gore
and sharing drinks with their tales of ghosts and hexes,
they enter her house, their identities no longer concealed.
She holds the roses; he opens the wine—the treats he left.
Their shadows glow through curtains before lights go out,
two lucky hearts anticipating more mystery to be revealed.
Two brave spirits overcoming specters long holding sway
vanquish horrors of their first date this Valentine’s Day.
The Unforgiving Angle
By Wylly Jordan
July 27, 1864
Gilleland’s double-barrel cannon proved an unmitigated disaster, “combat” fired only once upon the rumor of a Union army out of Monroe. Whatever ghosts provoked it welcomed another, in a clean expression of purpose and flaw, as the chain-linked balls whipped sideways and cut the left gunner in half so quickly it took him a moment to realize he was dead.
Gilleland did not waver. At home, he need only walk to the back porch for inspiration: his son, William, arms clasped such that both appeared intact, until the unforgiving angle showed one hand cradling the stump of the other.
“It itches, Pa,” William had said once. “I cain’t scratch it.” He had not looked down, his eyes somewhere else. “It itches.”
Gilleland honed his designs, tireless as the candle burned. Let it. And with these hands, dear Lord, I will mend what is put asunder.
In less than a year the war was over.
April 9, 1868
It was three years to the day since Lee surrendered at Appomattox, an act of cowardice so profound that Gilleland could never forgive it but for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The date was not intentional, but no accident, he knew. Three was a number of power.
He had exhausted the collection at The University of Georgia, down to the volumes once kept upstairs in the university’s first log structure. He sifted through the ashes of De Renne’s original library in Savannah. He spent considerable time in Louisiana, first in New Orleans, then Houma.
This was the furthest north Gilleland had ever been. He had visited Virginia once, a cousin who had prospered in tobacco. News was that only the chattel survived, the fields, home, and family all put to the torch. This remembrance more salient as he disembarked in Kingsport and a free negro looked him in the eye as though they were both men. Lounge coat and trousers finer than his own. Too stunned to be angry, Gilleland marveled at how far and fast the world had fallen.
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. Spring in Massachusetts was colder than home, but on the edge of a campus in Essex County his heart was colder still. He spat.
The trail led here. Always here.
His notes are an amalgam of arcana cribbed by candlelight from wretched tomes. One such volume, a dark, heretical cousin to the Sefer Yetzirah, lay the foundation. Its importance could not be overstated. He need only his mind, hands, clay, and…
…and…
The warnings were clear. Nevertheless. For now we see through a glass, darkly, is this not the Word of the Lord our God? And William was right.
It did itch.
June 3, 1872
He had poured all that he had learned into the red clay. It waited with terrible purpose that could not be undone. In the days that led up to the monument’s dedication, Gilleland had worked like a man possessed. It was not too late. It could be sealed.
The obelisk was raised with appropriate solemnity, sponsored by the Ladies’ Memorial Association. All of Athens was in attendance. There were several religious leaders.
Prayers, but no sacraments. Gilleland breathed easier.
December 24, 1875
On a Friday morning, surrounded by loved ones, John Wesley Gilleland, Sr., inventor of the double-barrel cannon, died peacefully in Athens, Georgia, this Eve of the birth of our Lord.
August 10, 2020
Sidestepping a challenge from the Georgia Senate, the Athens Confederate Monument is relocated from downtown Athens.
October 31, 2023
The crack is almost imperceptible, sketching down Broad Street like a failed polygraph. Birds take flight.
Cars alarm. The Bank of America building, architecturally suspect, lurches towards its forward corners.
The birth is quick and violent, up from the breach like a miscarriage. Edifice crumbles.
A shadow over Athens. Eddies of dust, a red breeze. Towering and still, it stands as though in quiet contemplation, perhaps the adopted dreams of a dead man, where genteel and cultured masters stroll barefoot on dogwood petals. It raises its hands.
From blasphemous stigmata unmakers flow, the malleable riddles of the mad. Liquid eyes form and burn and form again. All with singular purpose. To raze. To rise.
To make great again.
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