pregnancy

Birth by Todd Love

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Childbirth is always a disorienting, dangerous, and painful experience. As beautiful and fulfilling as it also might be, it remains those things. It should come as no surprise that Todd Love’s Birth focuses heavily on those first three things. It’s a horror story, after all. What else did you expect?
Nora’s labor begins early, while she’s alone at home and unprepared. Bleeding, experiencing pain like she’s never known, and horrified that something’s gone wrong, it’s a relief when the professionals arrive and spirit her away to the hospital. Unfortunately, trained professionals can only do so much.
Nora’s fear that something might be wrong is well-founded and has something to do with the donor material she utilized.
Once again, Todd Love takes the rug by its frayed edge to not only yank with all his might and pull it out from under us, but also leave us sprawling on the floor, wondering what the hell just happened.

This title, like many of Todd Love’s stories, can be found at http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless App to your mobile device of choice. The link is below:

Birth by Todd Love

Cravings by D. E. McCluskey

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

Pickles, raw meat, even toilet paper, I’ve heard of some peculiar cravings experienced by pregnant women. For Sarah, her impulsive craving for a burger on the way home from an ultrasound was only the beginning. She doesn’t discover the true meaning of craving until she rushes to the bathroom after devouring that meal.
McCluskey hits us with a barrage of revolting set pieces devoted to Sarah fulfilling her new and increasingly disgusting cravings from that point on. We’re unable to turn away as we witness the vile, superbly detailed filth unfolding before us until everything in the first-time mother’s life spirals out of control as she desperately seeks to provide her unborn child with what it needs.
The best part is that none of this feels like shock and revulsion simply for the sake of creating something gross. There’s something more behind the mischievous and perverse imagination on display here. McCluskey manages to make us question things along the way.
How far will a parent go to provide what they believe their child needs from them?
How much willpower and control does one have in reserve when faced with an overwhelming, all-consuming impulse like a pregnancy craving?
How hard is it to clean certain substances out of one’s clothing after ravenously digging into a truly messy meal?
I hope I never have the answers to any of these questions, and I dearly hope that McCluskey’s answer to the first two questions is not what we discover in these pages.

You can obtain Cravings for yourself by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device. This title is also available from Amazon. The links are below:

Cravings by D.E. McCluskey

Effucuss by Tim Eagle

/ MeltdownMessiah / Leave a comment

In the third installment of the Vasectomus Trilogy, Tim Eagle brings us back around to Charles Effucuss, the former courier who supplied Sabre with the fluids he required for his parasitic children.
While “Chuckles” was a bit player in the original story, Effucuss fleshes him out in detail. From the moment he begins buying drugs from Sabre, the small-town dynamic of Stevats begins to feel like a force of destiny. Coincidences and happenstance proliferate his everyday life, propelling the young man on a collision course that will take him from isolation and sexism, through the shattered remains of Sue and Sabre’s doomed marriage, to a peculiar sort of fatherhood.
The bizarro and body horror elements from Vasectomus are back in full force in this conclusion to the trilogy. As Eagle takes the components he introduced and amplifies them for this final tale, we’re left wondering how and why all of these events came to pass. But perhaps it’s best not to question these things.

Effucuss was released as part of the 31 Days of Godless event at http://www.godless.com for October of 2021. You can find this story for yourself by going to the website or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device. The link is below:

Effucuss by Tim Eagle