Kevin Wright
Stories (10)
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Slum Chutney
Slum Chutney A Tale of the Machine City Now: BETRAYAL ENCROACHES in the form of five stooped shadows. Through the smoke, they come. Betrayal. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Who? is academic. Why? is the question. From the darkness, they ooze, stinking of gin and whores and rotting flesh. Of dog. Cheap canine grafts growl in the steam mist. Rotting, those grafts, but the men attached still breathe, for now. In the Machine City, Mortise Locke, even dead things creep, and the way things look, I’ll be creeping shortly.
By Kevin Wright4 years ago in Fiction
The Dead Empty
The Dead Empty A Tale of the Machine City Now: THE CROWD FILLS near the whole of Malabar Square with a sea of turbans and brown bodies, arms raised, fists pumping in synchronicity, voices pealing, roaring. Loud. Rhythmic. Musical. Painted signs ride the human tide like armadas amidst a tempest. Sari banners whip and ripple, a cacophony of color and caste. The man standing above, upon the stage, facing the crowd, lowers his hands, trying to quell the tumult, soothe his audience, slip a word in edgewise. Emile Urunta. Man of the hour, maybe even hours. Organizer. Polarizer. Womanizer. Man of many followers. Talents. Izers. In his bid for silence so that he might conclude his speech, nodding, smiling white, he submits to the praise, basking in it like sunshine. The crowd roars louder. He has failed, failed because they admire him, because they adore him, because they love him, and they need to make sure he knows it. Nodding, demurring, he wipes a hand across his smirking mouth. He knows it, and they should love him, a right smooth fucker is he.
By Kevin Wright4 years ago in Fiction
Steel at Dawn
STEEL AT DAWN IN ALL LIKELIHOOD Alin would be dead in twenty minutes. He squinted at the pink of dawn setting the green hills of Wesserwald afire. His head pounded, and his stomach, his stomach was not pleased. It … it gurgled, and he had the sweats.
By Kevin Wright4 years ago in Fiction
A Shadow in the Night Rising
A Shadow in the Night Rising LITHE-WIND CROUCHED beyond the vale, studying the horror before her that had become so commonplace since the start of Metacom’s War. She waited, slowing her breath, patient though her heart pounded, implacable though her lip twitched, serene though her stomach roiled. For a long while, nothing moved but the billow of black smoke, roping blistered in knurled plumes high into the sky.
By Kevin Wright4 years ago in Horror
The Beast
The Beast THEY CALLED HIM THE BEAST behind his back. To his face, no one had the balls. No one. And this was something in the gulags. Once, years past, I witnessed him murdering a guard. Manacled. He strangled him, nearly severing the man’s head. So violent. So efficient. So impressive. In the midst of a gulag riot it occurred. Many suspected, but none knew, not for sure. Except me, and I did not talk. You didn’t talk. You don’t.
By Kevin Wright4 years ago in Horror
The New Guard
The New Guard SILENT LIGHTNING BLARES stiletto sharp as disco strobes as I stare out the window, riding shotgun. Flashes. Freezes blast past, instants frozen in time, frames of photography smashed together into a fractured comic that has no plot, no unity, no sense. A yowling pack of mangy coyotes chases a squealing cur through a bodega parking lot. A drug house next. Then an Aztec pyramid in silhouette against dim city lights. More tourist traps. Thin grizzled men, dried as jerky, dancing drunk round a rippling trash can fire. Hell … maybe the story does make sense; I don’t know, but if it does, it’s a shitty one no one wants to read.
By Kevin Wright4 years ago in Horror
