A Disgusting Supermarket of Death

James Harberson

Description

A Disgusting Supermarket of Death collects hard-boiled shorts about satanic Christmas movies, performance art euthanasia, child sacrifice skincare, and other demented goodness from Jim Harberson, co-author of Markosia’s acclaimed graphic novel, Stay Alive.  

Sujets

• Horror
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Markosia Enterprises Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781913802271
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Disgusting Supermarket Of Death TM & © 2021 James C. Harberson III & Markosia Enterprises, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. All names, characters and events in this publication are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Published by Markosia Enterprises, PO BOX 3477, Barnet, Hertfordshire, EN5 9HN.
FIRST PRINTING, February 2021.
Harry Markos, Director.
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-913802-24-0
eBook: ISBN 978-1-913802-25-7
Book design by: Ian Sharman
Cover art and design by: Stephen Baskerville
www.markosia.com
First Edition
• CONTENTS •
1. Extra Credit : A corrupt prison warden sells crime conventioneers access to a notorious serial killer with murderous results.
2. Easter Eggs for Christmas : A man attempts to conjure a demon by splicing supposedly accursed fragments of family-friendly Christmas movies.
3. The Ice Cream Man : An OCD sufferer’s irrational fear of being suspected of murder sends him on a neighborhood killing spree.
4. Ars Gratia Mortis : A talk show host interviews a performance artist whose medium is euthanasia.
5. Friends in the End : A Catholic priest tasked with exorcising an entity from a suburban home discovers the entity is his best childhood friend.
6. Me, Again : A supermodel recovering from cosmetic surgery in a Swiss clinic is horrified to discover that she has simultaneously washed up dead on a tropical beach.
7. Gertie : Opening day at a museum dedicated to a serial killer’s memory brings unexpected and horrifying revelations about his legacy.
8. The Slice of Life : A cutting club at an elite high school presages an even darker movement brewing among its students.
9. #meatoo : A mortician is implicated in multiple murders while selling rich weirdos access to dead celebrities.
10. Everybody Comes First : A health insurer resorts to insidious tactics to convince a patient to forego cancer treatment.
11. Swatted : SWAT officers start murdering their colleagues and each other shortly after killing a family during a botched raid.
12. A Good Scare : An extreme haunted house patron can’t tell if the murders occurring around him are real or just part of the entertainment.
13. Spring Chickens : A kid searching for his missing friend discovers that residents of the neighboring retirement home are sacrificing orphans to bathe in their blood.
14. Medical Malpractice : A group of healthcare providers arrange a massive car pile-up so they can murder the victims.
15. Ghosts of Who I Never Was : A clone scheduled for termination escapes her captors, not knowing that she harbors a serial killer’s identity and homicidal urges.
16. Due Process : Murder results when three school friends try to rein in a misbehaving classmate by putting him on trial.
17. Dream Job : Producers of a show in which convicted serial killers comment on schlocky horror films receive a mysterious, untitled film that appears disturbingly real.
18. Chemotherapy : An overeager life coach virtually stalks and abuses her clients to “improve” them.
19. Number Six : While investigating several ghastly murders, a homicide detective kills people he’s supposed to help.
20. Unforbidden Knowledge : A reporter attends an invitation-only screening of a horror film that drives viewers to murder and/or suicide.
21. Team Player : A freshman invited to join America’s winningest high school football team discovers he must enter a blood pact with Satan to do so.
22. Peak Bliss : A man living in endless luxury provided by doting robots finds himself dead to joy and therefore suicidal.
Special Thanks:
Margaret Harberson James C. Harberson, Jr.
Justin Harberson Harry Markos Stephen Baskerville Aviva Abramovsky Debbie Bookstaber Thomas Crowell Matt Gold
Irina Manta Will Meyerhofer Frazer Rice David Rothschild
EXTRA CREDIT
“Do you really know him? Hodgepodge?”
“Yes. I deal with him quite often.”
“What’s he like?”
It was another true crime convention, this one in Omaha. And it was January. My stomach objected to the motel coffee and plastic-coated pastry. The middle-aged shut in crowding me smelled like the last five pizza burritos he’d microwaved. He wore a hoodie featuring an infamous mug shot of Kleber “Hodgepodge” Pillsbury, a gadabout mass-murderer who penned a series of bestselling memoirs weaving lurid recollections of his crimes with pro-eugenics jeremiads and detailed ratings of past lovers. (To his dismay, all profits went to his victims’ families, thanks to an activist court that pissed on the First Amendment.) Kleber got the nickname “Hodgepodge” after he merged several victims into one body and delivered the results to a prominent medical school, which kept it alive for almost two weeks.
“He’s a serial killer. We keep and feed him at the minimum the Constitution permits. It’s like having a pet scorpion you don’t want but can’t get rid of.”
“I know! What’s he like?”
“He’s a hopeless narcissist utterly incapable of empathy; however, he has a felicitous prose style that wins him admirers notwithstanding those failings.”
Crime cons are a series of weirdness filters. Just paying to go was weird or borderline weird (the idly curious). Paying twenty-five hundred to hear me was plenty weird. Staying to ask questions, weirder still. The four stragglers before me were maximum weird: fleeting romantic relationships (if any); irregular employment; and extravagant devotion to murderers they lacked the fortitude and charisma to be. They all wore Hodgepodge T-shirts or other gear. Murray, the fatty in my face, had SK mugshot sleeve tattoos: Gein, Gacy, Manson, Fish, Kuklinski, Ramirez, and even the Columbine shooters.
The questions were inane and profound, guided by crushing teenager logic: “Does he wear cologne?”; “What’s his favourite movie?”; “How big is his, well, you know—”
And then: “Can I meet him?”
The others asked the same.
I smiled. I mean, that’s why I was there. Still, I had to go a little coquette. “That would be highly irregular.”
“You’re not saying ‘No.’”
“There are security concerns.”
“We’ll sign any waiver you want.”
“And no photos allowed. I mean, like I said, it’s highly irregular. My superiors would object.”
“Then you shouldn’t tell them.”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on it. However, I’ll have to involve some trusted personnel.”
God they were eager: Ten thousand. Each.
They squirmed, but they agreed. Maybe I’d lowballed it. Maybe they got more of their parents’ Social Security benefits than I’d guessed. Oh, well.
I collected their contact information and promised to call.
***
A police academy friend now working in Indiana ran them for me. They were pristinely crime-free, nobodies: Murray, 43, who spent his time acquiring online college degrees and maintaining thickerthanwater.com , a serial killer/mass murderer fan site; Georgina, 31, who sold homemade jewellery online when not cosplaying Lizzie Borden; Melanie, 37, a corporate secretary-cum-Aileen-Wuornos cosplaying dominatrix; and Jack, 26, a dweeby accountant who, according to his financials, was Melanie’s best client.
None were married.
***
I had Officer Smith pick them up in my SUV. He was a guard and the facility’s weed connection. He cut me into the profits and did me occasional favours, like picking up illegal meet and greeters for Hodgepodge. They really wanted to ride in an official prison van, but I didn’t want to have to explain the mileage.
We met in an abandoned wing of the prison scheduled for demolition. No cameras, no barbed wire. Smith frisked them at the door, confiscating all electronic devices. I watched as he did.
“This shit isn’t ending up on the tubes. It’s totally private. And if you blab, Smith here will pay you a corrective visit.”
Smith smiled. “True crime.”
We assembled in the infirmary. Hodgepodge sat in an old wheelchair, handcuffs secured to a restraint belt chained to leg restraints chained to the floor. Just forty, he was sleek and handsome, his hair buzzed, his muscles bulging against his jumpsuit. “Hodge” was tattooed on the left forearm, “Podge” on the right.
Four folding chairs stood before him. I was in one corner, Smith in the other. We ate sliders from the catering station Smith had set up beforehand. They’d insisted on refreshments; I suppose their stomachs were hardened to just about anything.
Hodgepodge smiled at me. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
I finished the slider, straightened my tie, and joined them.
“Um, okay. People, this is Kleber Pillsbury, popularly known as—”
They cheered: “Hodgepodge!”
Hodgepodge smiled.
“Well, you know who I am. Who are you — ”
I interjected. “Sorry. First names only. And no signings, either. He disembowelled a guy with fountain pen right before they caught him.”
Hodgepodge smiled.
Georgina panicked. “Can I at least read him the poem I wrote?”
“Uhh-”
Hodgepodge beamed. “Is it erotic?”
She blushed. “Well—”
“Then you MUST!” She extracted a crumpled paper from her pocket.
Jack frowned. “Wait, why does she get to go first?”
Hodgepodge turned to him. “One of the things one learns in prison is patience. You’ll have an opportunity to question me, or confess to me, or indulge whatever other cryptic depravity powers your dreams—”
I smiled. “No touching—”
“Oh, Warden, pooping on my party as always, and not in the good way.”
“His point is that you’ll all have a chance to speak your peace, or whatever.”
Melanie and Jack turned to me hopefully. “We wanted a private audience. We also wrote something, a kind of interpretive dance incorpor