Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

This SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

Live shows at THE PALINDROME!

WATCH best friends attempt to murder their pals in order to claim the cash prize whilst riding spiky motorcycles!

WATCH friendships end as lives end!

LIVE on pay-per-view!

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The next film from the award-winning poultry industry filmmakers Studio Giblets has finally arrived! Marvel at an all-meat cast as they explore the land beyond the abattoir in search of the Gizzard of Oz that will make them all delectable. Rendered in stunning hand-drawn animation with a lush musical score by the acclaimed band 11 Herbs, The Gizzard of Oz Is a magical golden-fried journey for the whole family.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“The problem for me was the necroplasts,” said the first judge, Cindy Wailing of the Ghouliard Culinary School. “There were just too many bitter souls of the damned, and it overwhelmed the rosemary and sage.”

“I disagree,” said the second judge, Eternos Slumbre of the Corporeal Spectre eatery on 5th and East. “I would have liked more necroplasts to help balance the sweet tartness of the chutney.

The third judge, Betty Wight, simply howled.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “I think Pricklefist is a perfectly reasonable name for a pineapple.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“You have entered the sanctum of Galax,” said the warlord. “Subjugator of galaxies, tamer of stars, terror of nebulae. Ask your question.”

“Ah, yes, my lord,” said the ambassador from Nairte IV. “We have a question about the pronunciation of your name.”

“My name?” the warlord said.

“Yes,” said the ambassador. “Is it pronounced GAL-LAX or GAY-LAX?”

“What does it matter?”

“Oh, it matters a great deal, my lord,” said the ambassador. “If it’s GAL-LAX, that has a certain ring to it, but GAY-LAX? We might have trouble taking you seriously if it’s that one.”

“Would it make you care less if I threatened to destroy your miserable world?” the warlord said.

“Well, if you were to do that, would you mind answering the question first? We’d still really like to know.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

PRAISE ALL BITMAPS!

Praise be unto the GIFs, the JPEGs, the TIFFs, the PNGs!

Praise be unto the rasters, the vectors.

Praise be unto the halftones, the dithers.

Praise be unto the black-and-white, the greyscale, the RGB, the CMYK.

For, without them, we are BLIND.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Ostia is the perfect place to hide from somebody like me.

It’s abandoned, thanks to…well, you know. But not for so long that everything has been looted. If you know what to look for, there’s still food to be found that won’t give you a writhing death from botulism. Even batteries, if you’re lucky.

But that particular skeleton of a city is rapidly getting popular now that most people fancy that the danger is past. Oh, you’re still not allowed in, and the roadblocks will turn you back. USUN will shoot you on sight, though they don’t stray from the roads and certainly don’t get anywhere close to the outskirts.

So I wasn’t surprised to learn that my quarry had fled there. In fact, I relished it. With a typical bounty, the chase is half of the fun. In this case, with our history, it was more like the delightful final chapter to a long book, or the last moves in a long chess game. I intended to enjoy it to the full.

But only one of us was coming out of there alive.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Hamid waved his receiver. “Signal coming in, boss. Satellite phone. Text only.”

“Don’t call me boss,” Ali said. “It’s demeaning. Call me Captain.”

“You’re the boss, boss,” said Hamid.

Ali snatched the handset and looked at it. “Foreigners sighted at following coordinates. Westerners. Lax security. Apparently excavating something.”

“Sounds like a good chance for us,” said Hamid. “Kill some interlopers, maybe take some hostages, get some artifacts for Khalid to move. They’re paying cash for hostages and artifacts in Raqqa.”

Ali nodded. He’d come out to the desert to do something with his life. He couldn’t be content running his father’s dry-cleaning business in Hatay. But in the eighteen months since he’d slipped south to join the Caliphate, there had been nothing but dusty patrols, slim rations, and a steady supply of contradictory orders from the higher-ups.

It was time to prove that he wasn’t a screw-up.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The Sick Party in Rm. 445

This one’s a little different, since nobody who witnessed it still works at the Hotel Palmserston but you can find it in old city papers.

On Halloween, 1970, a group of people checked into what was then a double, room 445. Their plan was to go to a masquerade in town but split the hotel bill. A total of 8 people went to the room afterwards, and ordered room service. They also had a lot of candy, since a mock “trick or treat” event had been held at the masquerade.

The room was left a huge mess, and the people who had to clean it ate some of the candy that had been left in the room. Within a day, everyone who’d eaten something on Halloween night was in the hospital suffering from life-threatening sepsis. Of the 8 people who had trashed the room, one died and one had to have a length of intestine removed. Everyone spent months in the hospital.

Survivors tried to sue the Palmerston, saying that they had been poisoned by the room service food. But no one else who had eaten in that night–onw of the kitchen’s busiest–got sick, and it’s devilishly hard to catch sepsis from a bad meal besides. And none of the maids who’d eaten the candy got sick, so that couldn’t have been the culprit.

In the 1990 renovations, rm. 445 was split into two singles, 445 and 446. But to this day, no one wants to deliver food to either room because of what happened 40 years ago. Luckily, as far as anyone knows, nobody’s had room service or Halloween candy in there since.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The Dumbwaiter Obstruction

There were 20 dumbwaiters in the original design of the Hotel Palmerston, but only 5 remained in use after the 1990 renovation. They are mostly used for moving cleaning supplies now, since they’re too dirty for food and the service elevators are much more efficient.

One of the dumbwaiters started jamming sometime in early 2000. It simply would not go above the 14th floor, and the management decided that there had to have been an obstruction. They hired a local elevator repair firm to come have a look at the dumbwaiter through the maintenance access.

Nobody knows what they found, but the 13th and 14th floors were evacuated via the fire alarm that same day. When everyone returned, the shaft had been permanently sealed and all the doors welded shut. Electric power was cut off at the mains and all the other dumbwaiters were rewired to draw their electricity from elsewhere.

The elevator repair firm was given a lucrative contract to service the entire Hotel Palmerston the following month, despite being basically a mom-and-pop operation. Word around the hotel was that they were being paid hush money for something. Since no one other than the shift supervisor and the two guys from the elevator place were around when the shaft was investigated, nobody knows for sure.

Of course that led to all kinds of crazy rumors. People started smelling things, hearing things, seeing things. But no one smelled, heard, or saw anything for nearly a month when the dumbwaiter was refusing to go north of 14.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!