He screamed in blind rage, picking up the wireless monitor console and hurling it across the lab, smashing it to pieces. He ran wild, smashing everything he could get his hands on. Tools. Furniture. Everything. A working knife lay on the floor near a tool box he"d strewn open. He desperately wanted to kill himself, but the M chip prevented it. Then he wanted to kill Linda. But the chip wouldn"t allow that either. He glared hatefully at Karen"s living head, seemingly mocking him from its place on the shelf. He took a step towards it, wanting so much to rip out the life-support tubes. But, again, the chip stopped him.

He fell to his knees on the concrete floor, weeping, his fists pressing into his eyes. How could she? How? How could she have deceived him? Betrayed him? What kind of devil was in her that could...that was it! She was evil. Pure evil. Everything she was an abomination against G.o.d. She had to die.

They both had to die. He looked at Karen"s head again. And this time, he could make his legs move toward it. He could make his hands rip out the tubes and wires. Karen"s eyes snapped open in a moment of shock as he s.n.a.t.c.hed the head from its perch and smashed it to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp against the concrete wall. He laughed in mad satisfaction. The M chip wouldn"t allow murder for the sake of jealousy, but ridding the world of a sodomite didn"t count as murder. He looked down at the knife on the floor. And this time, he could make his hand reach out and grasp the handle.

He slipped the knife under his jacket and started towards the door, intent on seeing Linda one last time. Then, something occurred to him. He looked with disgust at Karen"s headless body and remembered something. The genome mapping studies conducted back in 2029 had indicated that the h.o.m.os.e.xuality gene, though usually recessive, was often inherited. He had to find out.

Accessing the A.I. via the bio-scanner, he quickly programmed a standard genetic scan on Karen"s unborn child. "Scan Fetus #4 for gene #117071." He waited nervously as the seconds ticked by.

SCAN COMPLETE, the artificial intelligence intoned. GENE #117071 PRESENT AND DOMINANT.

He wasn"t sure why, but he felt strangely relieved. Then, he knew why. He didn"t want any trace of Karen to survive. And now, he had the means to destroy her offspring. The M chip"s motivational imperative against taking innocent life had one overriding subroutine: The abominations had to be destroyed. Evil could not be allowed to exist, even in fetal form.

Smiling in wicked, animal delight, he ripped the umbilical feeding tube from Karen"s stomach. Blood and sickly gray fluid gushed from the hole in her belly.

"Die, you..."

Red lights flashed and deafening alarm klaxons sounded. He looked around, startled. SYSTEM FUNCTION INTERRUPTED, the A.I. announced, its built-in security protocol activating. SYSTEM COMPROMISED. The camera lens on the ceiling swiveled in its base and fixed on Will. EXTERNAL THREAT IDENTIFIED. NEUTRALIZE.

All four headless bodies began to move, the A.I. manipulating their limbs cybernetically through the autonomic neural relays. They surrounded him, their cold, clammy hands clutching at his throat with superhuman strength. He struggled, short of breath, as the undead things cut off his air.

He was wrestled to the floor, his arms and legs pinned. He saw one of the zombies pick up a tray of surgical instruments from the work table. His heart raced. He realized he"d never bothered to install a morality program into the A.I. Its only programmed function was to protect the unborn lives it was charged with. That was all it understood.

"Override," he forced out of a strangled throat. "Priority Daubson!"

OVER-RIDE COMMAND NOT RECOGNIZED. DAUBSON NO LONGER VALID. INITIATE CONTINGENCY PROGRAM 1.

One of the headless drones leaned toward him with a scalpel. The last thing he saw was the heart tattoo on its shoulder. *Forever."

Elias Weatherby, the president of Williams University, writhed in exasperation as the policeman fiddled with the magnetic security lock on the door of the abandoned bas.e.m.e.nt. "Detective Brock, I really must protest this unwarranted violation of University property."

The middle aged black woman standing beside the policeman sighed and rolled her dark eyes. "Nothing unwarranted about it, sir. Not according to Judge Madsen," she quipped, holding up a computer pad with the warrant scrolling up the screen.

Elias scowled in irritation. "You"re building a case out of nothing and you"re generating ugly rumors about the University! Will Daubson is one of our best students. He can"t possibly be involved." He sweated, imagining the headlines.

"We know he embezzled money from the University to rent this bas.e.m.e.nt s.p.a.ce, sir. And his email accounts indicate connections with pro-life extremist elements. That doesn"t exactly track with his taking a job at a women"s healthcare clinic, now does it?"

He loosened his tie and collar. "Look, that clinic doesn"t perform abortions. They just occasionally make referrals to other healthcare providers who..."

The security lock clicked open. "We"re in, Detective," the policeman said.

Detective Brock drew her gun, pushed the steel door aside, and led her men into the dank bas.e.m.e.nt. Elias held his nose as he reluctantly followed them in. The place stank of alcohol. He nearly fainted as he saw what was inside. A girl"s shattered head lay strewn on the floor. Three more like it, their brains exposed and wired, stood in a row on a shelf. One of the cops scanned it all with an image recorder.

"Oh, G.o.d, no," Elias muttered, slumping against a wall and mopping his sweaty face with a kerchief. He could almost feel the alumna support slipping away. He noticed an odd sound, a strange, repeating squishing noise. On the far wall, on the other side of some shelves, he saw shadows moving in the dim electric light. Shadows of oddly-shaped bodies and quivering strings, like life-sized marionettes.

Detective Brock stepped from behind the shelves and holstered her gun, looking like she might be sick. "Fifteen years homicide, and I never..." she muttered, shaking her head. She looked up at him and beckoned him forward. "I"ll need you to have a look at this, sir."

He trembled as he hesitantly followed her past the shelves into the next room. He froze, his jaw dropping, his eyes snapping wide.

Will Daubson"s severed head lie on the floor amid spattered splashes of his blood and his roughly discarded clothes. Three headless, naked women stood nearby. But the scene playing out just beside them, that was what finally stopped Elias" heart. A headless male body was copulating with a headless female body. The two interlocking cadavers rocked and pumped with a repet.i.tive, machine-like rhythm, wires and cables controlling them like puppets. Then, the motion stopped, and the other three female corpses disconnected the male corpse from the life-support system, as though he were a tool which had served its function and could now be put away.

IMPREGNATION COMPLETE, a metallic voice said. SYSTEM BALANCE RESTORED. NORMAL FUNCTION RESUMED.

Saucy.

by Nate Burleigh.

My razor slid through the vessels of his throat as I felt him release inside of me. The spurt of blood and his climax simultaneously brought me to o.r.g.a.s.m. My toes curled. I screamed with voracious glee as he flopped next to me, grasping his throat with both hands. The look in his eyes sent me into overdrive and I came again. My fingers slid across my tummy, basting the blood spurting on me while I watched him struggle to stop the bleeding. Turning on my side, I placed two b.l.o.o.d.y fingers over his lips. "Shhhhhh," I said. He gurgled one last time and stopped breathing.

Did I give a f.u.c.k who he was? No. If he had a wife and children, even better, he shouldn"t have picked up a hooker in the first place. But that"s not the worst of it. He sucked in bed.

When I stood, the rest of his man-fluid started sliding down my leg in a slow stream. Blood trickled down my belly and streamed down the other leg as if it wanted to race the other stuff to the floor. I placed my bare foot on his throat and pushed. A shudder of pleasure shot from my genitals to my heart as blood gushed from the wound. All venous now, the carotid stopped pumping when his heart stopped.

Kneeling next to him, I opened his mouth and pulled out his tongue. With a single stroke of my razor, it separated from his body. I quickly slipped it into my mouth and swallowed it whole. The feeling reminded me of how he"d caressed the back of my throat earlier with a different body part. I"d almost bitten it off then, but I like the feeling when they finish inside. No condom. I don"t like them and have never asked a John to use one. Ninety percent of the time, they agree. I"d get to that short stack of b.u.t.tons a little bit later. Right at that moment, I wanted his heart.

My tools were in my purse. I"d placed it on the table in the kitchenette of the hotel. When we"d moved to the floor, he didn"t even realize there was a tarp under the blankets. He"d been too busy, I made sure of that. I pulled the small hacksaw out. I"d sharpened it the night before.

I gutted him to make room because I liked to start at the xiphoid process and cut up to the sternal notch. The saw flowed through the bone easier than I thought it would. A good sign I"d sharpened it correctly.

After I pulled his ribcage open, exposing the visceral lining over his lungs and heart, I cleared it out of the way. The mound of cardiac muscle, haplessly sunken into his chest and held tight by surrounding vessels, made my mouth water. I almost shoved my face inside and started nibbling right then, but I could wait. It didn"t take long to cut it free.

This piece of s.h.i.t lying in front of me really reminded me of...him. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d that locked me in his bas.e.m.e.nt for three days, raped me, and basically ate me inside out. His name was Eric Vandermort, a prominent physician and f.u.c.king pillar of the community. We started dating shortly after I finished college. But my morals got in the way of our relationship because I wanted to remain a virgin until I got married. It"s how my mom did it, and it"s how I wanted to do it. My goal was to wear that d.a.m.n white wedding dress with pride and give myself to the lucky man on my wedding night. It garnered me the nickname, *Tight Teri", in high school.

He pushed and pushed and finally I said I"d stroke him and get him off that way, but one thing led to another and soon he started forcing me to perform oral. He choked me until my gag reflex gave out completely. I guess that"s why I got so good at it. But in the end, I wouldn"t let him touch me, not even rub on top of the clothes. There"d been this girl in high school that got pregnant when the guy came on her panties during a rubbing session and I wasn"t going to get pregnant, even if it did look like Immaculate Conception.

I tried to break it off.

He offered a truce and said he"d stick with the oral. I said, "f.u.c.k off and die." He didn"t like that much. One minute I was in my apartment, sleeping soundly and when I woke up, I found myself strapped face down on one of those ma.s.sage tables. He had my head Duct taped with my face stuffed in the donut hole. The table tilted at about a forty-five-degree angle and I knew all I had on was my night gown and panties. I couldn"t talk because of a small rubber ball he"d taped into my mouth. I could barely breathe through my nose.

I don"t remember how long I lay there, in the pitch black, before the light came on. He didn"t say anything. He slid my panties off and pulled my nighty up over my head. Tears started streaming from my eyes and it got harder to breath from the snot building up in my nose. His finger lightly floated over my genitalia and my body responded. I got a little wet. He started licking between my shoulder blades and slowly worked his way down.

He lapped at me, endlessly it seemed, and then I felt him on me. He rubbed up and down. I whimpered from that and he actually stopped. Then, without any kind of warning, he rammed it into me. I felt him tearing me inside and then he let go. I screamed as much as I could through the ball and tape. It really hurt. To my surprise he cleaned me up, put a pad in my panties, and left, turning the lights out.

The concept of time eluded me like a criminal in a subway. There weren"t any windows in the room and nothing to look at but the bare a.s.s brick wall two feet in front of my face. I awoke when the lights came on. I didn"t even remember falling asleep. He raped me again and it hurt like a mother. He never said a word.

I stopped counting how many visits he made and figured he would just starve me to death. My throat felt like someone had lit a fire inside of it. The burning sensation seared the inside of my nasal cavity and I knew I had a sinus infection. I figured that would kill me. I blew out as much snot and blood as I could and still only had half a nostril that worked. The feeling of impending doom overwhelmed my soul.

One night, morning, whatever it was, a poke in my arm woke me and I felt a cold rush of fluid hit my veins. I actually started feeling a little better. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d gave me fluid and antibiotics. I didn"t know why he wouldn"t just let me...die.

I felt raw and crusty. Sometimes he would use lube, but most of the time he didn"t. He got a little inventive once and tried another hole. But I still had some muscle left and he finally gave up. Or so I thought. At some point, I think he knocked me out and then did his business back there, because when I woke up, my crack felt like someone had pried it open with a butcher knife.

The Duct tape covering my mouth finally gave out and I spit the ball to the floor. My throat hurt when I tried to breath. There wasn"t any moisture in my mouth. I licked my lips and they were covered in cold sores. I"d wriggled and squirmed for as long as I could remember and finally the tape holding my wrists gave. I slipped my right wrist out and quickly had myself unstrapped. I tried to stand, but the muscles in my legs were wasted away and my feet were numb. I fell to the floor.

When I gained some feeling back in my extremities, I found a light switch on the wall. I slapped my hand over my mouth to keep myself from screaming when I saw the items on a small table directly behind the ma.s.sage bench. A plastic bin had soaking surgical instruments in it. Next to that was a one gallon bucket. I forced myself to look and when I saw the pieces of b.l.o.o.d.y flesh inside, I dry heaved several times. I didn"t know until later that he"d performed a v.a.g.i.n.al hysterectomy.

A door slammed from somewhere up above and I quickly made my plan. Inside the basin full of soaking instruments was a surgical knife. I grabbed it and turned the lights out. The familiar bounding of his feet pounded in my brain for the last time as he came down the stairs, no doubt, feeling frisky. I stood next to the light switch. His keys rattled as he opened the door. When he turned the light on, I swung the blade like a fighter delivering an uppercut. The blade penetrated just under his jaw line and when he screamed, I saw that it had gone all the way through his mouth, lodging in the roof, probably somewhere in the nasal cavity. He vomited and reached for the knife, but I pulled it out too quickly. He stumbled backward, holding his throat. That"s when I noticed the plate on the table, with more pieces of flesh on it and a fork and knife. That son of a b.i.t.c.h had been eating my insides.

The bleeding wouldn"t stop, but he didn"t seem to be dying. He bolted for the door and I slashed the knife across his face, severing one of his eyes. He fell to the floor, holding his eye as vitreous fluid and blood oozed through his fingers. He screamed like a ten-year-old school girl. I leapt on top of him and just started stabbing. No telling how many times, I just let loose and when he stopped moving, I stopped stabbing. But he was still alive. His good eye moved from side to side, as if he were still plotting his escape. I made him watch while I castrated him. He gurgled and puked blood. Then, before the lights went out completely, I popped a family jewel into my mouth. Strangely, I didn"t puke when I swallowed; something else he"d trained me to be good at. He died a couple minutes later.

The only people that knew about my traumatic hysterectomy were me and my OB/GYN. But I moved away from that h.e.l.lhole and found myself living in Seattle. Flashbacks of my ordeal started haunting me, day and night. In an attempt to quail the painful memories, I went to a bar. My objective was to find out if I could receive pleasure from s.e.x. I met a rather eager middle aged man. We went back to his house. He got a little rough with me when I said I didn"t want to have intercourse. That"s when I retrieved my keepsake from my purse and slit his throat. Surprisingly, it made me o.r.g.a.s.m. Better yet, it stopped the nightmares and flashbacks.

My cell rang just as I took the first bite out of the man"s heart. I looked at the name. It said, MURRAY. f.u.c.k, my boss. "Detective Kili, here," I said with my mouth full.

"Teri, it"s Laurie."

"Hey chief, what"s shakin?"

"Are you getting anywhere with the case?"

"I"m still walking the beat, talking to some of the girls, but n.o.body seems to know anything." I smirked as I looked at the mutilated corpse on the floor in front of me.

"s.h.i.t. You want to team up again on this one?"

I was a little jaded. "For old times" sake?" We"d been partners for six years before she got the promotion, before all of this started happening.

"Yeah, whadda ya say?"

"No. Thanks. I like working alone. Besides, who would call and bug me..." I paused, looking at the heart lying on the plate in front of me. "...when I"m busy."

She laughed. Told me to be careful and hung up.

After finishing my meal I threw on a pair of coveralls and rolled the corpse up in the tarp and blankets. I"d chosen a far corner room of the hotel, bottom floor, nowhere near the parking lot and lots of woods out back. Not hard to find that kind of thing on the outskirts of Seattle. I"d stash the body in the woods and dump it in the Puget Sound later. Sounded like a plan to me. Lately, there"d been sightings of some Great White sharks. I may have had something to do with that, since I was basically chumming the Sound.

The clock read two A.M. when I drove out of the parking lot in his car, my hair still sticky wet from the shower. None of the tenants were awake and the nasty guy behind the counter slept soundly with a newspaper over his face. Good thing I prepaid for the room. I was really good at covering my tracks. And it didn"t hurt that I was the lead detective hunting down the most notorious serial killer in Seattle"s history, a cannibal hooker...me.

Crankin".

by John Arthur Miller.

Crank tightened the razor wire encircling his forearms until slivers of metal cut into flesh. The metal bunched thicker nearer his hands and clumped around his knuckles turning them into h.e.l.lish gauntlets.

"You ready, boy?"

Crank glanced at the old man. Mickey received his nickname before the Rocky movies had come out, a perfect ringer for the boxer"s manager. Crank nodded. The steel gate swung inward and Crank entered. Blood squished between his fingers, drooling to the floor.

"One more hit, old man?"

Mickey put the crack pipe to Crank"s lips.

"Only got one rock, boy." Mickey leaned close, reaching through the fence. "Need two?"

"I wish," Crank spoke out of the corner of his mouth. "There isn"t time for two, pops. Light it."

Crank inhaled the harsh smoke made metallic by the barilla pad. He inhaled deep, letting it fill his body until it accelerated with nervous twitches. He exhaled gray smoke.

"Come on, light it again, pops."

Mickey obeyed and Crank cashed the rock out with a deep draw. He wished he could warm the sides of the pipe, melt the residue off, because that was the best s.h.i.t, but there wasn"t time.

Crank felt the nanonites in his body already repairing the effects of the crack, already flushing it from his system. Part of a prison experimental program, like his opponent, they were swifter and stronger than six men, and they healed at an accelerated rate.

"Get ready, boy." Mickey took the pipe from Crank"s trembling lips. "Your opponent has entered the ring."

Crank exhaled and turned around, smoke stinging his eyes. The steel door behind him clanged shut, and across the octagon stood a seven-foot monster of muscle. Couldn"t be human, but there he was, fists bound with razor wire just like Crank"s. The behemoth"s bald pate glimmered in fluorescent lights, one healthy eye glaring. The giant raised his fists and squeezed until they trembled, growling like a cougar, as great splats of blood lathered the floor.

"Remember what you"re fighting for, Crank," Mickey yelled. "Not the drug."

Crank frowned and thought of Natasha and William, his family, held somewhere on the complex, hidden away. He hoped they were safe, secure-not dead.

I don"t do drugs anymore, he"d said two days ago, at a time when everyone called him Mack. I quit doing crack years ago. Married a beautiful woman and adopted her kid. I take care of my family now.

He stood on Main and Fulton Avenue, waiting for the nine o"clock bus. It had been cold, a December wind cutting through his coat, the leather one Natasha had given him last Christmas. One-Eye stared from the back of the Cadillac, his driver idling the car.

"What"s the matter, Mack? Don"t like me anymore?"