I reversed my visitation order last night and had a killer time. I also had this hanging up at Good News Mountaineer Garage:

I snapped some pictures as I took this strange new route.

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The caps denote excitement. Or rage. I guess it depends on whether you come out or not.

But if unforseeable adversity really keeping you from the Art Emporium (i.e. Dinosaur Attack). I’ve posted all the pieces I’ll have on display below!

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I may have let Tsubasacon and the West Virginia Book Festival slip through my fingers…but I haven’t been completely idle! I’ve got quite a line up of shows coming soon! And hopefully more in the works.

Art Walk
Art Emporium
Charleston, Wv
August 19, 5pm to 8pm

Beckley Art Group Juried Exhibition
Cynthia Bickey Gallery
Beckley, WV
August 20th to September 19th
Reception: August 20, 6:30pm to 8pm

Allied Artists of WV Members Only Show
University of Charleston
Charleston, WV
August 26th to September 30th
Reception: August 26th, 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm

These three gems have just been added to the store!

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And after a ridiculously long wait we’ve finally got an in house gallery. I’ll be showcasing the different sections as I build them this week.

photo: (criagCloutier)

Darkness descended on Avery like waves. She watched it danced and shift on the walls of her bedroom. Growing darker and dark the longer she watched. The shapes undulated and swam never keeping a form for longer than a second. Sometimes she could recognize the shape. A person. A bat. Other. 

People recognize patterns. That’s the eyes’ job. That is what makes art something more than just a series and lines of colors. A television show more than a splattering of dots. The patterns are everywhere. A fluffy bunny floating down a lazy path in the sky. A face in wooden paneling. Nothing new. Nothing strange. Just something the brain does to make sense of the world and to comfort itself.
But what was ever comforting and sensical about the shapes on the wall?

Avery rolled over and pressed against her boyfriend’s naked back. She hated the feel of it. She had heard once before that we pick our mates by scent. His smell nauseated her. She wondered if she should wake him up before her mom got home. She wondered if she even cared anymore.

She closed her eyes, and the shapes kept dancing on the back of her eye lids.

2

Her mother didn’t care about Mike staying over. Or didn’t notice. Or just never came home. Wouldn’t be the first time.

They walked hand in hand through Point Pleasant, because that seemed like the thing to do. The eyes are the window of the soul. Also the first thing to decay. She had always thought Main Street was the eyes of the Point.

He produced a tiny baggie from his black jeans. He dropped a couple of the pills into his palm.

“Is it even noon?”

Mike looked at his wrist and shrugged. “Somewhere.”

“Do you think I’ll ever get out of Point Pleasant?”

“Maybe Athens this weekend,” he said. “They have a great hookah bar up there. Don’t card.”

In Point Pleasant going out on the town meant taking the hour long drive to Huntington or Athens. Now that’s saying something. There only things to do in Point Pleasant are vandalize, get stoned, or fuck. Hence, Mike, King of the Romantics, who’s idea of a great night is rolling over and watching Quantum Leap after sex.

Can’t afford college or nursing school. Could probably get a scholarship to the mortuary school outside of town – best case scenario. It’s typically where the kids who have good ACT scores and no money goes. Barring an accident or Mayor Barrett shutting down the women’s clinic, that is. Otherwise, she could see herself in a trailer with Mike and his grandma on the outskirts of town.

“Aren’t you going to take those?” Mike said. She looked down and registered the shrooms lying in her palm. She searched her mind for a reason not. Something involving Scott Bakula so Mike would understand. Failing to find one she popped them in her mouth.

3

Avery couldn’t count the number of times that she’s walked through TNT tripping balls. She could count the number of times she’s walked through stone sober. Once. It was so unsettling she swore to never do it again. She couldn’t remember what upset her. Something to do with the angles of the trees. The drugs forced her brain to make sense of them. For once she was thankful for the fog so she didn’t have to see those God damn trees.

A blue light danced in her peripheral vision. She jumped expecting to see an officer trailing behind them. Will o’ Wisps pulsed in the fog. The pounding of her heart was replaced with bass thumping. She rammed her elbow into Mike’s gut.

“Is that..is that really there?”

“The blue lights? The music?” Mike said. “I see it. Doesn’t mean much.” She grabbed Mike by the wrist and they charged into the fog. He dug his feet into ground. “Whoa, whoa! The only thing over there are some bathrooms.”

“Well, maybe I need to go.”

“Probably better off behind a tree…” They tumbled over one another through the fog giggling all the way. The mists cleared and there sat a squat concrete building. Blue Christmas lights were strung over the Men’s and Women’s doors. The bass thumped the structure’s heartbeat. The high whine of a violin gave it all a very old world feel.

A broad man watched the doors. He worked his fingers under his red cap and considered their approach.

“There’s a cover to get in.”

“He’ll handle it.” Avery gestured at Mike and charged through the Women’s room door before he could protest. She fell back against the door. The room stretched forever. The stalls were replaced with a mahogany bar with no end in sight. Paper lanterns cast red, blue, and green lights over the rave. A jukebox belted out a hybrid of techno dance beats and Victorian formals.

Her lunch bubbled in her stomach and threatened to resurface. She couldn’t remember eating any. Saliva pooled in her mouth.

An Asian girl cupped the back of Avery’s pixie cut and titled Avery’s head back. She drained the contents of a red Dixie cup down Avery’s throat. It was frothy and sweet. Reminded Avery of honey suckles. She studied how the highlights in the girl’s hair matched the cup. The room stopped spinning, but it didn’t come into focus. It blurred around the edges. The bile sloshed back to the pit of her stomach.

The girl took Avery by the hand and led her to the bar. She had never seen the girl before. Probably the same age as her too. Private school, most likely. It had been a fad for the rich to adopt Chinese children. That was until the middle class started.

She had not realized how crowded the bar was. From the door it was bare, but up close it was teeming with unfamiliar faces. In the Point it might have been an oddity to meet one person, but a room of them…Avery looked back over her shoulder. She couldn’t spot Mike or the door.

A pale boy eyed her beside the jukebox. The purple half moons under his eyes hide his irises. He reached from across the room and pulled her towards him. He might have been a little heroine chic, but she danced with him anyway.
4

Another drink.

It might have mattered if she noticed before, but it certainly didn’t matter now. The boy was white as the driven snow. His hair was translucent– the light sparkled off each dread like icicles.

The techno beat had dropped from the music. A haunting fiddle melody howled from a live band. She wasn’t sure, but the song might have been Danse Macabre. Icy fingers danced under her shirt on the small of her back. She shoved against the boy’s bar chest, slick with perspiration and burning cold.

She combed the crowd again for familiar faces. Disproportioned bodies contorted on the dance floor. In the very center was just a jumble of arms and legs. A gray skinned man with a scar running from lips to cheek ate raw hamburger from a plastic bag. He flashed a toothy grin that stretched beyond his face.

She ran frantically for the exit. The room was spinning again. She felt like a drowning swimmer. The water was far too black to tell in what direction she was swimming. Towards the surface or deeper into a watery grave.

She spotted a ray of light streaming through the water. Her BFF, Sarah.

“Sarah!” She embraced the girl so hard she lifted Sarah from the crowd. Her skin was clammy. “Thank God, you’re here! I’m freaking the fuck out. I’m too fucked up to find the exit.”

Sarah stared back with hollow eyes. She worked her mouth to speak, but only sewage bubbled out. It streamed from her mouth and down the front of her swelling belly. It hung out from under her decaying shirt. Black veins contrasted the pale flesh. She’s more shitfaced than me!

Avery spun on her heels and spotted Mike. He was cutting a Dancing with the Stars caliber rug with the Asian girl. Her face was coming off in flakes. It reminded Avery of the town hall’s edifice. Pale blue flesh glistened through the tears. His knee wasn’t stopping him today.

Another Dixie cup found its way into Avery’s hands. She marched back across the dance floor and locked lips with the pale boy.

5

She came to propped up in a corner of the room. She couldn’t make out any details of the party goers. The music was now nothing more than a tribal beat.

Sarah was shaking her and screaming. Black bubbles were the only things to escape. They popped one by one. Avery could have sworn she heard Sarah calling to her from across the room.
“You’ve got to leave! Don’t drink their drink or eat their food! It all has a price!”

“I can’t hear you!” Avery shouted. “Speak up!” Her chin rested on her chest and her eyes fluttered shut. She remembered something about a friend of hers being drowned by her boyfriend in the Ohio. Her and her unborn child. Tragic.

6

A black creature lumbered through the party. A sledgehammer dragged in its wake. Its inhalations shook the room. Its head scanned to and through. A shriveled man at height with the creature’s knees pointed towards people in the crowd. The creature nodded at each gesture.

Avery cowered under a table. The black thing pointed the business end of its sledgehammer at the table. The shriveled man took off his monocle and wiped it on his shirt. An empty eye socket continued to examine her. He replaced the monocle and the painted on eye blinked.

After an eternity he shook his head. They moved on. She fell over and melted into the coolness of the floor. Every thing slipped back into the haze of sleep.

7

Avery jerked awake and bolted up right. Her brain sloshed in a sea of hangover. She grunted and looked around. Mike was nowhere in sight. Most considerate thing he’s ever done.

She lay back down. The mists were too thick to see the sky, but it felt like morning. She watched the shadows dance on the foundation of the burned out house.

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photo: (One From RM)

As a service to the Vampire, Werewolves, Sidhe, Mothmen, Pimps, and other supernatural horrors on the threshold that inhabit the majority of our readership we proudly present…

Huntington by Night
 by Dr. Rev. Chase Henderson, MD, DD

How To Get that Swimsuit Bod by Summer
 (As whispered to me on the darkest of nights by the maddening voices from beyond the spheres.)

Thank you for joining me. I am here in my study sipping absinthe and tenderly watching a font of hellish power as it pours through my fireplace. I grin over looking the city from my zeppelin vantage point. It is here that I retire to write or pursue my studies most arcane in between shifts of shagging interns at Arkham Asylum. Audible sigh, a doctor’s work is never done.

Now it has been some time since the New Years, and I’m sure you started walking everyday. Maybe lifting weights? Perhaps, dipped into bulimia? And I am almost certain that you are not satisfied with the results. The reasons are two-fold. The first being that you are a slave to your ego and will never truly be happy. The second and foremost reason is that being overweight is not a direct result of poor eating and health habits. It’s not your fault.

Let me explain. While our basic needs appear to be oxygen, food, and drink it is in fact far from the truth. Or at least far from the whole story. You see we survive on various elements unseen that reside in our bodies long after we have passed. This is the reason behind the tradition of ‘witch funneling’ by various occult groups in the region. These funnels are placed in the graveyards to collect these elements as they are exhaled from the dead.

But I’ve gone off track. Our air is polluted, yes, but not entirely in the way that you think. Invisible to us are the demons, Gods, Pixies, and other unsoundly spirits from the depths of the Earth that feed on these exhalations. They feed on it and their waste refreshes our spiritual atmosphere again in such a way that resembles trees recycling oxygen. Now this is usually a beneficial symbiotic relationship. However, certain individual’s auras are a delicacy. You see you are not obese as much as you are bloated with demons.

Now the cure is exercise. Western medicine has gotten the name right, but not the correct definition. It’s not exercise as in working out, but exercise as in the medieval rites to drive out the demons. Fasting, intense prayer, self-flogging, and cleansing rituals are all well and good but this is America in the Now. Which also happens to be when problems are solved in America. Now.

With good old American know-how and ignoring all future consequences I’ve distilled these medieval concepts and rituals into fine liquors. Potent liquors that will quickly get you krunk with knowledge and power, but you have to drink it by the shot. Or you’ll die. Of knowledge poisoning and brain failure, because that’s just how potent my informative brews are!

Now here are some fine tips for getting fit by this summer.

• Stop sleeping – These demons enter your body in your sleep so logically if you are not asleep they can’t creep into your dreams and gestate. When you finally do go to sleep you’ll be too tired to dream. Careful, though, more than five days without sleep causes permanent mental damage, which is like candy to demons.
• Spin three times before entering any building – Spinning confuses demons, because it reminds them of tops, which we all know Our Lord used to distract the Fallen Angels. By the time they got back to Heaven, he had already changed the locks. Their buzz was so harshed that they were transformed into the invisible, screaming horrors that hate all life. Tops most of all.
• High sodium diet – Sea salt cleanses areas of tainted elements. So a diet of only salt will purge all demonic infestations and prevent new ones. Drinking eight glasses of water a day allows the body to purge these demons faster. For larger demon concentrations double this dose. To save even more time drink sixteen glasses of sea water a day.
• Seconds at communion – If you’re Catholic always be sure to get seconds at communion. The body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is a wonderful source of protein and demon killing salts. If you’re not Catholic just go to the nearest Catholic Church, and then treat the communion as a buffet. There is nothing they love more. You’ll need all those Christ-nutrients once you’ve been assigned as a concubine to a Goetic King once you’re burning in hell.
• If you’re plagued by the special insulin stealing sprites known as Diabeetus, then you need to purchase a copy of The Maker’s Diet, but reading it or following it is not required. Simply plaster the copy into your wall like I’m sure you’re already going with a copy of the Holy Bibble and a bottle of Jack Daniels. The diabeetus will be compelled to read it and follow the diet. Only the repeat this cycle over and over again each time it falls off the fat wagon. However, it will never plague you again.

Follow these tips and soon you’ll be fit as any linebacker in the Miskatonic Cephalopods.

Dr. Chase Henderson, currently works as the Chief of Medicine at Arkham Asylum the position once held by his mentor Dr. Hubert West. There his responsibilities include playing God, reanimating the dead, and boinking interns as per his Hippocratic Oath. He was recently upgraded to a Super Scientologist after his Operating Thetan level broke the one million mark. He was hailed as a hero for finally brining Xenu to justice with his cane-sword and pathological lying.

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