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    LampLight: Volume 3 Issue 4
    LampLight: Volume 3 Issue 4
    LampLight: Volume 3 Issue 4
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    LampLight: Volume 3 Issue 4

    By Jacob Haddon

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    About this ebook

    The June-ish issue of LampLight is here. Our featured artist is Victorya Chase. She brings us a dystopian future, and we talk to her about the genre, writing, and literary chess. Kelli Owen brings us the final installment of her serial novella, Wilted Lilies.

    Fiction from:

    T. Fox Dunham
    Davian Aw
    John Bowker
    Kealan Patrick Burke

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherApokrupha LLC
    Release dateAug 19, 2015
    ISBN9781311431233
    LampLight: Volume 3 Issue 4

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      Book preview

      LampLight - Jacob Haddon

      LampLight

      A Quarterly Magazine of Dark Fiction

      Volume 3

      Issue 4

      June-ish 2015

      Smashwords Edition

      Published by Apokrupha

      Jacob Haddon, Editor

      Katie Winter, Assistant Editor

      Paula Snyder, Cover and Masthead Design

      All stories copyright respective author, 2015

      ISSN: 2169-2122

      lamplightmagazine.com

      apokrupha.com

      Table of Contents

      Featured Artist - Victorya Chase

      A Harvest of Souls

      Interview with Jeff Heimbuch

      Fiction

      My Wasteland - T. Fox Dunham

      Call Me Only When You Get There - Davian Aw

      One Red Lantern - John Bowker

      Assisted Living - Kealan Patrick Burke

      Serial Novella - Kelli Owen

      Wilted Lilies - Part Four

      LampLight Classics

      The Pale Man - Julius Long

      Writer Bios

      Subscriptions and Submissions

      A Harvest of Souls

      By Victorya Chase

      Allie was sitting on Tanny’s bed trying not to laugh. She’d never seen her friend so excited, her overly glossed lips in a huge grin, blonde hair bouncing around. Her whole body was vibrating in an attempt to contain her news. News she had obviously been sitting on for a while. The door to Tanny’s bedroom creaked open and in pounced Tanny’s pug, Maurice, a cream-colored obese set of wrinkles with an ever-loose pink tongue hanging out. Allie had never seen it actually walk. It always hopped around like it was spring-loaded. She loved that dog for its looks but hated it for its nose. One day Maurice would sniff out the biggest secret she was keeping from Tanny. Allie scooted back on the bed, pressing her back against the wall in hopes the dog hadn’t smelled her.

      I’m in the breeding program! Tanny shouted before clamping her hands over her mouth.

      Maurice yelped, and Tanny pulled him onto the bed. He began to bounce around, throwing his head back and forth mirroring his owner’s excitement.

      Allie was too shocked to respond, or even to realize the dog was so near her, its nose whipping around to Allie, catching her scent.

      I found out six months ago but didn’t want to tell anyone until it was confirmed I could carry. You know all those girls who get past that first stage but nothing else? Well, I’m not one of them! Am I glowing?

      Wait, what? Allie stammered. When she agreed to go to Tanny’s house after school, even though her dad would be furious she went anywhere while having her period, she thought she’d find out about a secret crush on a boy or maybe that Tanny had finally decided on a college. Tanny’s sixteenth was just six months ago, and she was so focused on school and her future. You needed a Masters to at least be a salesperson, not like when their parents were kids. There were courses in customer dynamics and the like. And if you wanted to be a waitress there were personal relations and psychology, not to mention all the comportment classes. Not that Tanny wanted to be a waitress. But if you didn’t decide in time to enter the right program, you wouldn’t be of the most benefit to society. There were few professions that allowed you to change careers later in life.

      Except Breeder. It paid well and covered all tuition if you actually carried a child. Most who made the program were only in the reserves, waiting to see if they would be called to serve their country.

      I was implanted and the eggs, the embryos, whatever, they took! The recruiter said I was a perfect specimen. Healthy. Strong. Beautiful.

      Tanny blushed at the last word and began to bounce again. She leaned over and pulled Allie in for a hug. Maurice pushed his face into the hug, and into Allie, sniffing wildly. Tanny let go of her friend and picked up the pug, pulling him into her lap. It strained its neck to Allie, sniffing wildly.

      Allie pulled a pillow and pressed it into her lap, hoping it would provide a barrier between her and Maurice.

      You’re pregnant now? Allie asked.

      Tanny nodded and pulled Allie in for a hug again, smashing Maurice between them. His nose went straight to Allie’s crotch, trying to push the pillow away.

      I don’t get it, Allie said when she was freed, Natasha was the one who wanted to be a breeder.

      Allie pushed Maurice away. He snorted at her in puggish indignation, preparing to bark. Tanny pulled him into her lap, cutting him off. His little back legs pushed against her.

      Oh, I went with her, Tanny said. Whatever sister wants. But they said I was the one. And once I hit my first trimester, if I carry it that long, then I go to the spa with the other breeders. I’m deemed viable to aid in bringing these souls out of the freezer and into the world. I help create humanity for home and country.

      And you want to do this? I thought you wanted to be a mom, not a breeder, Allie said. It was proving hard for her to wrap her head around this. Granted, breeders were usually first implanted at age sixteen or seventeen when the body was prime to do its duty and provide a womb for those eggs in cryochambers waiting for life. It was women the country was herding, putting on farms and calling it spas. Giving them shared rooms with state approved exercises and state approved education and diets. A whole network of farms where women pushed out child after child until they were no longer viable. So said Allie’s mother.

      One day I’ll be a mom. Special preference is given to breeders, you know. Maybe I’ll even get to be a mother to a rainbow child.

      Children go to exceptional parents, Allie said, reciting the rhetoric taught in schools. Like how Tanny’s mom and dad were ardent supporters of the United Republic, upstanding citizens, so were given two little girls, born at the same time, to raise together. And Natasha, the rainbow child came with a file on Mexican culture and cuisine. The government deemed it important to keep ‘alternative ethnicities’ alive and sprinkled throughout the population to provide ‘spice’. Rainbow children, a pop of color amongst the white American quilt.

      But Allie wasn’t born to a breeder, neither was her younger sister, Jazz. Not that Tanny knew that. Secret number one Allie kept–that her dad pulled them both here, far from their old home, after their mother died in jail. Imprisoned for daring to lie about being harvested and having children out of state control. And as a state designated rainbow, no less.

      You’ll be the most exceptional breeder, and mother, of them all, Allie finally said.

      Maurice pulled loose from Tanny’s lap and pushed himself into Allie’s crotch, snorting hard. Allie picked him up and, pretending to hug him, whispered death threats into his flopped ear before turning him around to face Tanny.

      Maurice really likes you today, Tanny said.

      What did your mom say when you told her? Allie asked.

      I had to tell you first, she said. But I know she’ll be excited. Not everyone gets to say their daughter is a breeder!

      * * *

      Allie’s dad was beyond mad when he found out she went to Tanny’s house during her cycle. He tossed her the pads he’d risked his life to procure and she carried them into her room, curling up in a ball on her bed hoping to relieve the cramps and guilt. She knew the risks. What if Tanny had been more curious as to why Maurice was sniffing her? What if she’d bled through? Winged pads were so scarce now, the initial supply depleting thanks to backyard bleeders trying to hide their sin from the government. She was on a waiting list for a Diva Cup but they were even more scarce and going up to auction more often than to those on the list, now. It didn’t help that the government was declaring an all out war on feminine aid dealers, parading each one found past protesters chanting, Menses is Murder.

      These were the same protesters that stood outside the jail where her mom had died, screaming their state approved nonsense. Allie only had one photo of her mom. Allie was six and in a red wagon pulled by her dad. They had gone out for ice cream. Her mom was behind the wagon, licking her

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