"There is No Bird" by Richard Dansky

There is certainly not a golden bird, caged just above my heart.

That would be silly. He’s on the other side. A little higher than the heart, I think–that’s where I feel the fluttering. When I cough, or lose my breath, or just hold very, very still when he thinks I’m not paying attention.

The fault is mine. I caught him. I put him there. One lung down, the other failing, and so I did what any sensible man would do – caught a mythological creature, bound it to my breast with half-understood magics, and lived in fear of its leaving every moment thereafter.

Because the bird will leave someday. That I know. He will burst through the bars of his prison and shatter them. Shatter me. Leave me behind, broken and gasping and empty, and forget me as he flies away. He is immortal, after all. Were I to keep him for a hundred years, it would be as nothing to him. But he will be free.

This will happen. I have seen it in a dream, heard it in the song he sings late at night when sane men have long since gone to sleep. He is warning me, I think. It is a kindness, or a warning, or a torment. His ways are inscrutable, as, perhaps they should be. He is, after all, eternal. He is, after all, not human.

He hasn’t left me yet. I don’t know why. Pity, perhaps. Or fear.

Silence.

Flutter.

I wait.

About Richard Dansky

Named one of Gamasutra’s Top 20 Game Writers, Richard Dansky is the Central Clancy Writer for Ubisoft/Red Storm. He has written for groundbreaking series such as Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, as well as contributing extensively to tabletop RPGs in White Wolf’s World of Darkness setting. Richard is the author of five novels, including Firefly Rain. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and their inevitable cats.

"Cat Nip" by Len Kuntz

I didn’t know how the cat got in. You weren’t allowed to have pets in our building, and I certainly didn’t own one. I hated animals.

When I opened up the shower curtain, the thing bristled and hissed at me. It had pus-colored eyes and smelled like sewage. When I told it to get the hell out of there, it leapt up and ripped its claws across my cheek. Bloody paw prints were all I saw once my eyes stopped burning.

Returning from work that night, I heard chaotic bumping and shuffling noises in 42B. I might have suspected wild romance, but my neighbor was Mrs. Kindling, seventy-seven and sluggish. When I knocked, all the motion inside ceased. I put my ear to the door. I thought I smelled sewage. I thought I heard mewling, then a ripping noise.

There was a work party the next night. I drank too much, flirted with the boss’s wife. Decided to walk it off. Took an alley I shouldn’t have.

Six dozen of the creatures were waiting. They flew at me like bats. I saw a blizzard of fur, felt their swipes like razors.

The cops who came to the hospital didn’t believe my story. They said I was suffering from shock, trauma.

The press dubbed my assailant The Slasher. On the news I saw a reporter describe my attacker. Then she showed a “disturbing and graphic” picture of my face, covered with row upon row of stitches.

Coming home, I noticed cat fur coating the carpet like cottonwood fluff. I stopped at Mrs. Kindling’s door. Knocked. Nothing.

When I wrapped on the Superintendent’s door, he buzzed me in and the hinges sent the door swinging open.

It was dark. I stepped on something meaty and wet. I bumped into a chair. I called, “Mr. Andoni?”

The door slammed shut. The light flicked on.

A huge calico, wearing an eye patch and chomping on a stubby cigar, sat across the desk.

“What the hell?” I said. “Where’s Andoni?”

The cat burped up sandalwood and licorice notes—Andoni’s cologne! “You killed him? Ate him?”

The cat raised his paw, curled a claw. He wanted me to sit.

When I did, he flipped his lap top toward me. On the screen were four separate stories—Cleveland, Seattle, Memphis, Bismarck—about a certain Slasher on the loose.

“You gave us the idea,” the calico said.

“So, you’re, you’re attacking innocent humans?”

“You should try subsisting on rodents and Kibbles your whole life.”

“This is insane.”

I sprang out of the chair, but a posse of black felines had my passage blocked. Seated on their haunches, fangs bared, most foamy-mouthed, they looked a demonic crew.

“You can’t do this.”

“No?”

“Please.”

“Say the secret password, and we’ll let you go.”

“Secret password? I don’t know.”

“Tough luck then.”

“Wait! How, how about abracadabra?”

“Nope.”

“Open sesame?”

“Nah.”

“Please.”

The cat chortled, motioned his men forward and said, “I like mine a little on the rare side.”

About Len Kuntz:
Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State. His writing appears widely in print and online at such places as The Ramshackle Review, Blue Print Review, Troubadour 21, and also at lenkuntz.blogspot.com

"They're coming to get you, Barbara, there's one of them now!"

I've only read Joe Hill's "Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead"and recent Bram Stoker Award Winner, Lisa Morton's "Sparks Fly Upward" stories, but I am already a little in love with John Joseph Adams' zombie anthology The Living Dead (2008). These frightening, witty and unconventional zombie tales remind the audience why these contemporary masters of horror are so amazing. With short stories from Clive Barker, Stephen King, Poppy Z. Brite and Neil Gaiman, this book is a must-have for any horror fan and writer.

A new anthology, The Living Dead 2, is available for pre-order on Amazon.com with writers such as Max Brooks, Carrie Ryan and Cherie Priest. Yes, I am shame-faced since I don't know who they are, but I cannot wait to read their work.


If you're a zombie writer, crawl over to the flash fiction Web site, Flashes in the Dark, and submit to their Resurrection Contest that ends on June 19!  

And the winner is...

After many fine submissions and a slight debate, we have chosen our winners for the first Tainted Tea Flash Fiction/Bookmark Contest. First Place winners will be featured in the Spring 2010 issue of the mag and Second Place winners will be right here on the blog for you to enjoy.

Congratulations to the following writers and artists:

First Place: Flash Fiction

• "Decisions" by Jodi MacArthur

Second Place: Flash Fiction

•  "A Cold, Dark Tale" by Rick McQuiston 

First Place: Bookmark

•  Dannan O'Brien

Second Place: Bookmark

• Harry Dickinson

Stay tuned for more contests. Thank you to everyone who participated. It was hard to come to a final decision.

Not too late...

Unlike that damn White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, it's not too late to submit to Tainted Tea's flash fiction and bookmark contest! Go here for official rules. End April 1, 2010!

Thanks to the following Web sites that posted our contest!