Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell

by Nathan Ballingrud

For one surreal moment I feel like we’re college buddies sitting in a dorm. It’s like there’s not a scorched, muttering skull in the next room, corroding the air around it. It’s like there’s not a man with a blown-out head moping quietly on the bed.

“Good,” I say, and shoot Tobias in the back of the head. For once, somebody dies without an argument.

Your whole life is a hymn to Hell.

Wormcake, suddenly, was in love. He fled from the terror and the beauty of it.