gwmusko

[gwmusko]

“A Rural Surgeon’s Cure for Boredom” in the flesh…

[gwmusko]

My latest story ‘A Rural Surgeon’s Cure for Boredom’ will release June 1st as part of C.M Mullers “Tenebrous Antiques” anthology. Available in print and e-book.

[gwmusko]

My latest story ‘A Rural Surgeon’s Cure for Boredom’ will release June 1st as part of C.M Mullers “Tenebrous Antiques” anthology. Available in print and e-book.

[gwmusko]

If you’ve already preordered Tenebrous Antiquities on Amazon maybe take a moment to check my friends game jam piece!

[gwmusko]

Pre-orders now available for the e-book of Tenebrous Antiquities, coming June 1st, catch my story inside!

[gwmusko]

very proud to announce that I have a story forthcoming in a anthology of historical horror slated for June 2024

Looking forward to sharing it with you when it releases and reading my fellow contributors pieces.

[gwmusko]

The ghost occupies the field entirely, the mass of a million bodies listless. Men, women and those who only drew a handful of breaths are among them. To and fro they cross the bare earth over their bones. Birds fly over the fields far into the sky, never stopping, never singing.

The night wind carries a tumult of voices. Languages mingle from their lip-less hollows some rising loud as a chorus united in thousands. Some lonely calls ring out without echo. Those alien tongues from islands and provinces whose bones were never fated to be put down in these fields. None are heard all the same God above calls the ghost to him. Their hairless skulls never glance up to hear the invitation. Pits void of eyes contort in grimaces of hatred on faces whose features have long since melted away. Others laugh mirthlessly like hyena. The ghost has seen too many tricks and games to believe another lie.

*

[gwmusko]

Being cursed is a bit of a drag, she mused, pulling on a cigarette to mask the cheap 3-in-1 deodorant the stranger wore, as he burrowed his face against her neck. Because he was, despite his own unluckiness, a sweet boy. Smoke billowed from her lips against the closed car window as she let out a bemused sigh. Far above them in the night the light of a full moon dappled through rushing rain clouds. A cassette spun in the dashboard, belting out a tinny chorus of noise she recalled him being excited to show her as they looked for a place to park. It was a fine song to die to, she supposed, and resigned herself to the mounting pressure at the base of her skull.

Soft flesh turned to a cold foreign un-sensation under his lips. Unclear at first under the numbing shield of amphetamine. Billy shot back as if she were a hot iron but her grip ushered him tight against her. Forcing him to witness the change up close.

The skin peeled like torn paper and split off down the sides of her skull. Revealing more of the cold green flesh he’d been salivating against. The ovular face was B=bristled with needly black hairs. Her eyes which had called him from across the bar without having to say a word, trickled away like broken yolks. Revealing two dishplates. Opaque yellow and boring into him with no sensuality. Only calculating appetite. Two fuzzy black antennae twitched and writhed in a frenzy as they sensed the prey tense. Before he could scream she moved, now it was her on his throat. Slicing the jugular like pruning scissors through a tomato vine. Red-hot fear gushed forth. Blood extinguished the cigarette ember which had fallen between their feet with a hiss An arc splattered across the window and the bubbling overflow filled down her throat. Two more precise cuts from the mandible and only a scrap of flesh connected the head to the neck. Another tear and the mantis let go its prize clamped in the still human hands. Billy crumpled down, a bleeding stump where a head filled with drugs and the frenzied joy at the prospect of mutual caressing had been.

*

‘Would you still love me if I turned into a mantis and gnawed your head off?’ A short horror scene based on the prospect of an insect rather than a lupine curse. Tangentially, why are the saps who die at make-out point in B-Movies and splatter flicks always named something like Billy?

[gwmusko]

The phosphorus white glare of stage lights flooded his eyes, blinking softened the rays reveal he was on his back, looking up at the wooden beams of the community hall ceiling. The boxer propped himself up on his elbows and into a sit, each move laborious and slow. The ringing in his ears subsided a little and the silence around him settled heavily on his shoulders. Beneath the sheet of canvas tattoed with beer mascots and bookkeepers numbers, the wooden decks of the ring biting at his backside moved him to rise. Trash was littered all around the stage. Parting gifts hailed by a unamused audience. If only he’d risen then and not now, then they’d be pelting the other sap, he chasisted himself, kicking out a crushed beer can that skittered away under the ropes. Would that I’d stood up before. Limping over to a rope of braided twine he noticed a shadow moving at the back of the deserted hall and became aware of wet smacking noise he made with his mop. The loser spat, thick and foamy with blood, before shouting out,

“I take it I didn’t win then? 

He felt each word in his tenderised jaw but still followed the words with a dopey smile. 

The cleaner stopped flailing his mop and turned to look at the ring and the tiny trembling figure which could hardly support itself.

“Your trainer, and that manager. They should have waited for you, no?” he called back, anticipating the skinny creature would collapse sooner than reply.

Instead the boxer managed to shrug and slide under the ropes and onto the floor. They should have bloody well waited, he mused only once he was out of sight in the musky sanctum of the locker room.

Fully dressed with a cigarette dangling from broken lips he humped it out onto the street in search of a taxi. Nothing hurt badly enough. Not just yet for him to forget, that for a moment, he’d heard the crowd and been invited glimpse the cosmos reserved for pugilists.

*

The last short I posted here was a short exercise in world-building so this time I decided to take a crack at a developing character in a single scene.

[gwmusko]

The women and sons of the keep had grown familiar with horses returning home without their rider. Petty wars had taken away too many and sent back too many empty saddles for the sight to phase or shock anyone except those relatives who knew the lost. The same scene played out during times of conflict, the family sobbing on their knees, cursing the sky above and pounding the mud with their fist. The confused creature, often bloodied and dying, was led away by sympathetic looker-ons.

The war paint and blood were washed away, the saddle and bridle stripped off and burned, and a knife was put to the creature's throat. They would not eat a war horse; grief had poisoned the flesh, and its taste wrought death. The beast would be laid down in the catacomb labyrinth beneath the keep's foundations. In the stead of the warrior who had succumbed and now rested in the embrace of some peat marsh or whose bones had been overcome by moss. 

*

Today’s piece is just a short exercise in world-building and scene-setting. I’m also excited to say I’ve partnered up with my friend and very talented illustrator Gurp to work on a project which I’ll hopefully be able to share more news about soon.

[gwmusko]

My story “Summons from the edge of the world” out now

It’s been a while but I’m very happy to announce you can read my story in the latest issue of The Lit Quarterly! Pick up a physical copy here: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1773541811/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+lit+quarterly&qid=1578712544&sr=8-1

[gwmusko]

Read my short story “The Hangman’s Tree” on this weeks Trembling with Fear

I’m very proud to announce that this story (which originally started out as just a flash intended for CintheR) has now been published by The Horror Tree’s TWF series. Check it out !

https://horrortree.com/trembling-with-fear-02-10-2019/

[gwmusko]

Read my short story “The Hangman’s Tree” on this weeks Trembling with Fear

I’m very proud to announce that this story (which originally started out as just a flash intended for CintheR) has now been published by The Horror Tree’s TWF series. Check it out !

https://horrortree.com/trembling-with-fear-02-10-2019/

[gwmusko]

Kemper is a 30 second teaser I made ages ago. Shooting it on VHS was a nightmare but I found the file recently and all things considered was still pretty happy with it.

[gwmusko]

“Hey what you reading.”

He lowered the hard-back.

“It’s called metamorphosis.”

Her antenna’s pricked up and she hid her wings to see him better.

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about a cockroach -”

“What like your neighbor?” She interrupted.

He rubbed his legs together like he always did when she stopped him mid-sentence.

“Yes like my neighbor. Except one day he wakes up and finds that he’s transformed into a human.”

“What like those hairless meaty humans?”

“Yeah like that”

“Gross.”

“Yeah I know right.”

[gwmusko]

Check out my short story “Do you know about Earth” in Doomwave zine

https://projectdoomwave.weebly.com/writing-audio/do-you-know-about-earth-by-gw-musko