ANNOUNCEMENT...

Hello New Flesh Followers,

Suzie here. It was a difficult decision but I'm afraid I will be leaving The New Flesh as an editor, but certainly not as a fan. I
had to get a real job...boooooo. I know. I know. But it's one I've been after for a while things aren't so bad. Most of you probably know how much I adore III (Billy/Will/William) and his family... he is truly one of the good guys and an absolute treasure to work with. And a good friend. The man's rocking some serious talent. So we will always stay in touch. Goodbye to all you fleshy New Fleshers... I wish you all bizarre and haunted nightmares! Long live The New Flesh!!

Always a fan, 

Suzie Bradshaw


* * *

 
Hey everyone,

It's me III (William Pauley III). I just wanted to take a second to say that I was very sad to hear that Suzie is leaving TNF. When I first started this site a year ago, I honestly didn't know what the hell I was doing. All I knew was that I wanted to have a site that was a lot like the other great flash fiction sites (Flashes in the Dark, MicroHorror, etc),but I wanted to specialize in bizarre or weird fiction.  Getting the site started was much more difficult than I had anticipated, but somehow I managed to get this place set up on a sturdy base.

After a few months, however, 'real life' began to get in the way of my new projects, so I thought it was time to find a second editor. Suzie Bradshaw was my first choice. I always have enjoyed her weird little tales and on top of that she was always reading fiction and leaving feedback for the authors on several websites. I would read her feedback and found that I always agreed with her comments. I immediately knew that Suzie would make a great partner-in-crime for The New Flesh.

In the seven months that Suzie has been with TNF, she has brought in an incredible amount of talent and her story selections have helped us grow to have nearly 200 followers.  
 
And now, Suzie's 'real life' is asking for her back. As sad as it is to see her go, I completely understand her decision and wish her the best of luck with her new job. Suzie is a wonderful person and we are great friends. She knows that she always has a home here at TNF.  I cannot tell you how much she will be missed.

Goodbye, my friend, and good luck. :)

So what's going to happen now? Well, as I mentioned earlier, running this site by myself has proven to be overwhelming for me in the past, so TNF will have a new co-editor starting today. Most of you won't be surprised by who I asked to take that position, because of our partnership in other projects over the last couple of years. The awesomely-talented Brian Barnett will be the new co-editor here at The New Flesh!

Brian is a great friend, a pleasure to work with, and a reader favorite here at TNF, so it really was a no-brainer to ask him if he wanted the job. I am very excited to have Brian onboard this crazy cruise of weirdos we call The New Flesh!

Writers: please do your best to freak 'the new guy' out! ;)

We have a great story that will be posted tomorrow - just you know, we will continue posting stories as usual. I do want to mention though that submissions are low at the moment, so if you got 'em, send 'em!

And remember...

KEEP IT WEIRD.

III

“Ah now Tilly, she don’t mean no harm.”

Robert held Tilly close. “Don’t cry now. She’ll take good care of you. You’ll see.”

He wiped the tears from her face.

“Go ahead. Do it.”

“Alright momma.” Robert stood up, unfastened his overalls and pulled off his underwear. He looked back at momma one last time before he climbed on top of his girl. He was glad he had a girl that wasn’t his sister or cousin or his momma like it used to be.

As he entered her he said, “Momma just wants her a normal grandbaby this time.”

"Relations"
Copyright: © 2009 Suzie Bradshaw

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Originally published at Microhorror.com 2009

“Girl, you got somethin’ right here.” Becky pointed a rotten finger from her remaining hand to between her front incisors and burrowed her head back into the fat girl’s stomach.

Bre-Bre threw the broken femur from which she sucked the marrow to the floor. “This skinny skank tastes like shit.” She scratched at her only tooth.

“I told you, bitch.”

“Whatever. Did I get it?” She smiled.

Becky looked up. “Shit.” She reached in the fat girl’s stomach, retrieved her eyeball, licked it and plopped it back into her socket. “Yeah, you got it.”

“Oh my god! Becky, that was disgusting,” she said and scrunched her nose. “God damn, you smell, too.”

“I do?” Becky lifted her arms and sniffed her pits.

Bre-Bre shook her head. Becky fumbled through her purse and brought out a bottle of Chanel Number Five, spraying herself accordingly. She dropped the bottle back in her purse and with tremendous effort rose to her feet.

“Fuck, we gotta go, Bre-Bre!” She pointed to the stairs.

“What?”

“Billy! He ain’t happy with me.”

“Ah, shit. Bitch, why’d you have to eat his dick?”

“Slut, there ain’t no bone in a boner. Not all I ate either.” Becky licked her bottom lip. Her top lip Billy had. “Nothing but meat and juices.”

Lumbering down the hall Becky pushed Bre-Bre. “Faster, you slow bitch!”

“Puta, we can’t go any faster.”

"Foul Mouth Teenage Zombie Girls"
Copyright: © 2009 Suzie Bradshaw
---------------------------------

Suzie Bradshaw licks frogs and snorts olives. There's a bloody man in her basement that gives her ideas to write about. He also does movie reviews. Sometimes she hates him and kicks him in the shins. She's had stories published at SNM Mag, Microhorror, The New Flesh, House of Horror, and The Monsters Next Door. She also has several stories published in various anthologies and is the very proud co-editor of The New Flesh.

Originally published at Microhorror on Aug. 5, 2009

“I’ve lost my shoe. Can you help me?” Dorothy asked the girl propped on a chair with a blood stained piece of white gauze wrapped around her eyes.

“I would but someone took my eyes.”

“Oh my! Why?”

“I don’t remember but I think I’d like them back.”

“Here,” Dorothy grasped the girl’s hand, “hold onto my arm.”

The girl wrapped a hand around Dorothy’s arm and got up. Dorothy looked down the hall. There was no end and no beginning. Doors lined the vastness on both sides as far as the eye could see.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Harmony,” the girl said.

“Oh, that’s beautiful. My name is Dorothy. Nice to meet you.”

The girl wore ballet slippers on her feet and made no sound as they started down the hall. Dorothy noticed how loud her one shoed foot was on the hardwood floor.

“This is quite uncomfortable,” Dorothy said leaning on the girl attempting to remove the red pump from her foot. “It won’t come off. I’m lopsided when I walk.”

“Maybe someone can take the foot off,” Harmony said.
Dorothy smiled. “Yes, of course. You’re a smart girl Harmony.”

“Thank you.”

Harmony’s hand was cold as Dorothy grasped it and intertwined their fingers like they were long forgotten friends. Click, click, click, went Dorothy’s one high heel on the floor as they followed a herd of five foot white rabbits.

“Do you hear babies crying?” Harmony said.

Dorothy listened intently looking left then right. “I do. It’s coming from that door.” She pointed and put her hand down, embarrassed, and led Harmony to the door.

“Oh goodness,” Dorothy said as she gazed upon a room of gigantic flowers with hairless baby heads, faces scrunched up and red, sticking up in the middle of each.

“They are flowers. Crying flowers.”

“Goodness, they’re loud. Can we pick one?”

“Is that what we are supposed to do?”

A white business card emerged from a baby’s mouth. Dorothy, with Harmony holding her arm, ventured closer. “It cried a business card.”

“Oh, what does it say?”

Dorothy reached out and took the card from the baby’s mouth.

“It says vote for me.”

Harmony bounced on her ballet-slippered feet and clapped her hands.

“Oooo, yay. I love to vote.”

“What are we voting for?” Dorothy said.

“The crying baby flower, I suppose.”

“Right, of course.”

“Where do we vote?” Harmony said.

Dorothy shrugged and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”

“Yes, it’s coming from that door.”

“Mmmm,” Dorothy said as she opened the door.

“I hear clinking and sizzling. I hear conversations and running water. Is it a restaurant?”

“It is.”

“Chinese?”

“Yes.”

“I am hungry. Want to eat?”

“I guess…I don’t know if they let our kind in here,” Dorothy said.

“Oh.”

The maitre de approached them. “Would you ladies like a table?”

Harmony turned her head and whispered in Dorothy’s ear. “He smells.”

Dorothy nodded and the tuxedoed werewolf showed them to a table by the window.

“So what can I get you two?” He took out his notepad and placed his reading glasses on the tip of his nose.

“I’ll have a diet coke and Kung Pao Chicken. Is it spicy?”

“If you want it to be.”

“Oh, I do. I do,” Dorothy said.

“Me too,” Harmony said.

Dorothy watched the Asian werewolf with the chef’s hat chop and toss meat and vegetables on a hot griddle.

“Do you think the bunnies know?” An abnormal smell slapped Dorothy in the face.

Harmony felt for the straw in her diet coke, found it and brought it to her lips.

“Yum, that’s good. What bunnies?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m done,” Harmony said.

“Me too but we didn’t eat,” Dorothy said.

“That’s okay. Let’s go find your eyes.”

“I have my eyes,” Dorothy said.

The wolfey maitre de scowled at them and muttered something under his breath as they left the restaurant.

Band music assaulted their ears as they walked back into the hallway.

“It’s a parade,” Dorothy said.

“I hear wheels.”

“Yes, it’s little people riding tricycles and a band is following them. Oh and the bunnies are behind the band.”

Dorothy clapped and watched as they came closer. A three foot tall bald guy dressed all in red velvet walked in front of the ones on the trikes, holding a box in one hand and a baton in the other. He walked over to Dorothy and held the box out. “Ma’am your vote.”

“What are we voting for?” Dorothy asked.

“Whether we take your eyes, you won’t need them here.”

“Right.”

“Your eyes,” Harmony said.

Dorothy placed her voter card in the black box and the little man promptly whacked her on the side of her head with the baton.

“Owww,” Dorothy said and put her hand over the wounded area. Blood trickled down into her ear. She looked at her bloodied hand and said, “Why’d you do that?”

“Because you won, of course.”

Harmony bounced on her slippered feet. “Yay Dorothy won!”

Dorothy smiled. “What did I win?”

“What did she win?” Harmony said.

“Why, to have your eyes removed of course. Such an honor,” the little man smiled, his eyes gleamed with pride and excitement.
Two white rabbits flanked each side of Dorothy. “This way, this way,” they said as they escorted her to a door she hadn’t seen before.

“What about Harmony?” She looked back at Harmony. “I think I was looking for my other shoe.” Harmony smiled.

“No, you weren’t. You don’t need those eyes anyway, silly. You don’t really use them.” The little man said.

“I’ll be okay. You go. I’m so happy for you,” Harmony said pushing the gauze slipping down her face back over her hollow eye sockets.

“Me too,” Dorothy said and started to wave. Standing at the door jamb she quickly said, “Thanks for your help.” She was pulled inside and the door shut behind her.

Harmony sat in the chair she was in when she met Dorothy. “Now where did I leave my shoe?”

"Distractions"
Copyright: © 2009 Suzie Bradshaw
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Suzie Bradshaw loves speaking and writing about herself in the third person. She also doubts that light is really the fastest thing in the universe and in her next life she will prove Einstein wrong. But in this life all she wants to do is write. Is that a song? She's had stories published on Microhorror.com and SNMHorrormag.com. Suzie says thank you for reading!

Penelope Aftergut slipped on her red stilettos and wrapped her long thick blonde hair in a tight bun securing it with a ice pick. The black slacks and red sweater ensemble she donned almost made her look like every other mother. She would remove her clothes during the activity. She examined herself in the full length mirror and applied her signature blood red lipstick to her perfect, pouty lips.


“Sara, I have to go,” Penelope said walking into the living room and leaning down pushing her ten-year old daughter’s hair behind her ears. “Grandma will be here in ten minutes. Think you can manage Brian for that long?”


Penelope kissed the top of Sara’s head, grabbed her Louis Vuitton and opened the front door. With one last look at her daughter she said, “Call me if you need me, or if Grandma doesn’t show.”
“Sure mom,” Sara huffed, crossing her arms. “Have fun at the PTA meeting with that stupid Mr. Hodensack. Johnny said he’s a cult leader and likes to eat children!”


“I know honey.”


Penelope arrived at the meeting and sat in a chair on the aisle in the back row wanting to make sure that Mr. PTA President saw her. Glancing around she saw each of her special friends. She had her reasons for wanting to kill Jeffrey Hodensack and her friends were along for the ride.


The cafeteria was half-full when he took the podium. Pledge allegiance by the boy scouts and that’s when he noticed Penelope. Bile rose in Penelope’s throat as his eyes pierced her soul. A cult leader he was, and he was good at it. Charismatic. Charming. Influential. And a passionate speaker.


She could smell the vile, evil creature within him. A door slammed and everyone’s focus was shed on the side door and Penelope’s heart thudded as…
Rex Miles stood in the doorway looking as out of place as a, well, as an assassin at a PTA meeting. He wore all black and had a crazed look upon his face.


Just like I remember him, Penelope thought. She intimidated most men. But not Rex. He did things to her no other man had on their one night together. He stood her up on what was to be their second escapade. God help her, she wanted him now. Heat swarmed within her. Her eyes narrowed in anger and glimmered with passion. Penelope got up and made a beeline towards him. She slammed him on his shoulder and hissed, “What the hell are you doing here?”


“Penelope Aftergut, you remembered that I like it rough,” Rex said smoothly. “How have you been?”


“Don’t fuck with me, Rex!” She looked him up and down and thought of those hands touching, rubbing, pinching, plunging and she shivered.
Rex’s lips curled into a crafty smile. “Oh, I’ve already done that.”


The meeting continued as Jeffrey Hodensack began to speak. The crowd now focused on him instead of the back of the room where Rex and Penelope stood.


“Bastard, you could have done it again too,” she replied. “Now tell me why you’re here.”


“You know me, Penelope. I’m an assassin,” Rex glanced at the podium.


“I’m here to kill Jeffery Hodensack.”


“The hell you are,” Penelope snapped back. “That’s why I’m here!”


“Well,” Rex began, “I was paid to kill Jeffery Hodensack, and his followers. So…” They looked around the room. “I guess there is enough killing that will satisfy both of our needs.”


“I have some friends here to help.” Penelope smiled brightly and brushed up against Rex whispering in his ear. “This is going to be fun.” She removed the ice pick from her bun and shook out her hair. “I hope to have fun with just you afterwards.” She showed Rex the ice pick and started to undress.


Rex grinned, “I think that can be arranged.”


Hodensack’s voice rose like a dictator addressing his army. With a nod from Penelope, her special friends barricaded the doors. Rex pulled two nine-millimeter Beretta’s from his shoulder hostlers. He looked over at Penelope and asked, “Do you want to kill Hodensack?”


“Yes,” she said with yearning desire.


Rex aimed at Jeffery Hodensack and pulled the trigger. Hodensack grabbed his chest as blood began to pour out of the wound. A large man wearing a gray suit lunged at Rex, but Penelope jammed the ice pick into his throat.


“Damn!” Rex quipped. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.” He raised the Beretta at a man who was running towards them screaming, “You asshole! You’ve shot Jeffery! You’re trying to kill him!” Rex shrugged a shoulder and pulled the trigger. The man’s head flew backwards as the back of his skull disappeared in an array of blood, bone and brain matter.


Penelope smiled and said, “Now, it’s time for me to play.”


Blood pooled around Jeffrey’s mid-section as Penelope stood above him. Even dying he looked like the filthy wolf he was. His eyes opened and closed and she watched in amusement. She was only vaguely aware of the screams and gunfire surrounding her. Jeffrey reached a hand out and grabbed Penelope’s ankle. She shook it away. “Don’t fuck with my children,” she said and laid a well placed stiletto imprint on his arm.

* * *

Penelope followed Rex to the same place of their first encounter. She watched as Rex got a room and walked over to her car. Penelope was still reeling from the thrill of the kill and from what would prove to be the best night of her life.


“Ms. Aftergut,” Rex said.


“Mr. Miles,” she said as she exited her car. He grabbed her by the back of her hair and yanked her head back so she looked up at him. “Foreplay starting already, Rex?” She smiled.


“Foreplay started an hour ago,” He kissed her hard while freeing the bloody ice pick from the tight bun. He released her and a grin spread on her face.

“We won’t need this,” Rex said, tossing the ice pick into her car. “I’ve got something else that I’d like to poke you with.”

"The Meeting"

Copyright: © 2009 Suzie Bradshaw & Chad Case

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Suzie Bradshaw loves speaking and writing about herself in the third person. She doubts that light is really the fastest thing in the Universe and in her next life she will prove Einstein wrong. But in this life all she wants to do is write. Is that a song? A list and links to her stories can be found at her blog at http://www.suziebradshaw.blogspot.com/. She's never been happier in her life and would like to thank you for reading.

Chad Case lives in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, with his wife, Melissa. He enjoys writing short horror fiction in his spare time. To date his works have been published on MicroHorror.com, The New Flesh Blogzine, Flashes In The Dark, and in the anthology: Toe Tags.

Penelope Aftergut had a taste for sweets and a penchant towards cruelty. She avoided doctors, believing from experience they were useless. Unfortunately, they were a necessary evil. Suffering from severe leg cramping during her more ambitious activities, she reluctantly made an appointment, deeming her high sugar intake the cause.

A fellow she met online, in a lesser known chat group for the cruel, and who she subsequently met in person along with others of like mind, agreed to accompany her to the doctor’s office. She was not the only one with little respect for physicians.

Exactly one hour after standing in her front yard, dressed in the customary suburban mom attire, waving to her children as they trotted up the school bus steps and grinning at the squirrel in her yard, she sat naked on the edge of the tub, water running warm washing the blood from her red stilettos. Her long blonde hair fell in her face as she worked lavender scented soap onto the spikes of her shoes. She pushed her hair back with the crook of her elbow and watched the water-downed blood stream and swirl down the drain.

After drying her shoes, she slipped her feet into them and faced the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. She turned around admiring the tattoos on each shoulder blade. They caused quite the stir at her club as she performed the activities with nothing on but her heels. A black thorny rose splashing three drops of blood, creating the words "Conquer me completely" puckered from her right shoulder blade. A raven with one eye hanging by a thick rope-like optic nerve oozing the words "Torture me so sweetly" on her left shoulder blade. These words she taught her pet raven, Pookie. It’s the only time she ever felt bad for her cruelty, as the raven on her shoulder with the missing eye resembled her dear pet.

She covered her ample breasts with her black lacey bra, slipped on a sheer, white, button up blouse and wiggled her black leather pencil skirt past her curvy hips. She wrapped her massive blonde locks to the back of her head and secured the loose bun with an ice pick.

The doorbell rang and Pookie spouted, “Torture me so sweetly…Torture me so sweetly…Torture me so sweetly.” Like any obsessive-compulsive raven he said everything in three’s. “Conquer me completely…Conquer me completely…Conquer me completely.”

“Ah Pookie. I do love you.” She said as she reached a red-painted fingernail inside the bars of the cage and caressed his head. “Love you…Love you…Love you.”

David stood at the door. Very few men made her female parts throb. David did. She believed lust to be a most wonderful and cruel feeling. She looked in his eyes and felt the warm, wet heat shudder from her.

“Hello David,” she said and gently and purposely rubbed her breasts on his chest as she stood on her tip-toes to kiss him on his cheek. He stepped away from her not completely comfortable with this moral dilemma.

“Ms. Aftergut,” he said. Penelope laughed. Then he laughed.

“Are you ready?”

“I am.” They walked to his car and he opened the door for her. They spoke of their mutual friends and activities on the thirty minute trip from suburbia to the medical center. He never mentioned his wife, though he did speak of his daughters. Penelope didn’t mind. They would take their game to the next level. The look passed between them. Words were not needed. They arrived in the multi-tiered parking garage and he opened the door for her and reached a hand out to help her out of the car.

Sitting in the doctor’s office together, they resembled any normal married couple, she leafed through House and Garden and he glanced through an old Field and Stream.

“Ms. Aftergut,” the nurse at the door, holding a chart in her hand said. Penelope shot a quick grin at David as they entered the office.

“Dr. Jacobs will be with you in a moment.”

Penelope took a seat in the examining room. ”Thank you.”

One hour later the door abruptly opened and there stood the good doctor.

“So you have leg pain,” he said without looking at Penelope.

“Yes, when I exert a great deal of force on my legs they cramp up terribly.”

“Mmmhmm,” he said and this time looked at her and then at David.

“What do you take for the pain?” He said with a slight irritated and bothered tone.

“Extra-strength Tylenol,” Penelope said, feeling herself growing agitated with his abrupt and careless manner.

She watched as he wrote out a prescription on his pad. He handed it to her. “Do you always wear shoes like that?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes but I thought it may be related to my addiction to sweets.”

“Try more sensible shoes and lay off the sugar. That should help.” He said, as he leered at her and licked his lips.

David got up and walked to the door, blocking the doctor’s exit.

“I have a better idea.” Penelope began to undress.

* * *

Penelope left tiny stiletto shaped blood prints on the tile as they left the doctor’s office and had a smidgen of blood on the bun at the back of her head. How odd that no one even peaked in the room with the good doctor carrying on the way he did.

Sore, bruised and battered she walked to her front door, turning to wave at David whose moral dilemma was vanquished on top of the good doctor’s body. She blew him a kiss and closed the door. Pookie was reciting his spiel as Penelope walked over to him.

“Mommy had a very good day, my pet,” she said as she caressed his head.

And exactly one hour before the children would arrive home from school Penelope stood in her kitchen in her suburban uniform, hair in a ponytail, baking cookies like any good, normal mother would do.

"Penelope's Good Day"
Copyright: © 2009 Suzie Bradshaw

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Suzie Bradshaw loves speaking and writing about herself in the third person. She also doubts that light is really the fastest thing in the universe and in her next life she will prove Einstein wrong. But in this life all she wants to do is write. Is that a song? She's had stories published on Microhorror.com and SNMHorrormag.com. Suzie says thank you for reading!