The second officially confirmed contributor to The Ashen Eye is Barry Wood, a Canadian. The following is an excerpt from his short story titled Warm Milk which will be published in the premiere issue of our magazine:
Before I was put in the institution, I had asked Momma not to leave me one day. I told her I was scared.
“Of what, darling?” she asked.
“The beast,” I answered.
She had taken me into her arms and hugged me. “There’s no beast, dear. Mommy has to go to work after I scrub the floors, Bobby.” She kissed me. “Please try to understand. Now I have to get the kitchen floor cleaned.”
Her bright red hair was tied up in a ponytail with a white ribbon. I was angry that she was going to leave me. She was on her knees on the kitchen floor. She didn’t hear me creeping up behind her. I whacked her so hard on the back of her head with that piece of two-by-four that I heard her head crack and the board snap. Then I ran to the porch. I grabbed the handsaw daddy had used to cut up a deer the year before. Its shiny jagged teeth glistened.
When daddy entered the house, he froze, dropping his bucket. Warm milk ran along the floor, mixing with the blood.
Barry Wood lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, where the above story is based. His short story titled Nowhere to Go is being published by award-winning short fiction digest Postscripts #14 in England, Spring 2008. He’s had several short stories published locally and on the Internet.
To know more about Barry, please go to www.barrywood.net, or email him at barrywood@eastlink.ca. His mentors are authors Charlotte Vale Allen and Thomas Ligotti.
An audio-cassette collection of his 1999 chilling tales, called “Barry Wood’s Short Stories,” is available for purchase.
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