If this comes true, someone’s gonna die.

This seems like nothing, but its a big deal. I started the web page AGES ago, but never did anything with it. I don’t need tips, I told myself. I just want people to read and like my story.

My novel. I’m self publishing a novel. I am an author.

It’s a big deal, and I need to treat it as such. I am self-publishing an online serial. That means writing, and editing, and web page management, and promotional leg work. That means holding myself accountable to an update schedule, making sure I keep a visible internet presence, and making sure I’m my own biggest fan. Making sure I give myself credit where credit is due.

So, a Ko-fi link. A small thing, but it means big things in my head. I don’t necessarily need tips, I’m doing just fine, but I’m putting myself out there. Speaking of putting myself out there, you know what would make my day more than a cup of coffee? Comments. Reviews, votes, ratings, referrals. I would love to know there are readers out there. I would love to find the new readers out there that I haven’t found yet.

Spread the word to your friends. Follow Asylum on Tumblr (here, duh), Facebook , and Twitter (@ravenlywrites). Leave ratings and reviews and votes on the many sites below. And, of course, read and comment on Asylum itself. Drop us a line, let us know what you think about the story, your favorite characters, a scene that made you laugh out loud. We'd love to hear it!

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The women of the neighborhood took turns pressing they're faces and palms to the glass windows. Observing, as they feverishly whispered to each other, as the man sat with his back to them, paying no heed. The boy found his place sitting cross on a bar stool, spiraling with his finger through a thin layer of nicotine film he found on a touch screen video game. The kind of machine that ran poker, and slots, and titty touch. The women didn't know what to make of it all, the man and his boy...So they stood in a circle, the sides of their faces pressed so close that they could smell each other's breath. And if one of them closed their eyes, she could tell the others by the smells of coffee, cigarettes, mint, garlic, mucus, and soup.

“I remember him”, said The Eldest of these women, her  skin looks like tanned leather, hair the color of snow, shrunken claws where there had once been healthy fingers, and her bad breath smells like old soup. “Four days ago”, she recollects,”said he was here to follow up on an address.” Nodding confirmed that they all remembered, the stranger they called “That Homeless”, whom had it written on the back piece of an old pizza box with torn edges.  The address of the old abandoned house on Clemens street. The depilated building with two empty lots on either side, where the weeds grew thick and waist high. The place that nobody went, not even those gangers or the squatter kids...but that homeless sure went there...with his makeshift weapon that some of the men called, “shiv”.

“Who will go speak with him?”, she asked. “We need to know why these two are not affected by the poison in the air.” But all she was given was blank stares, they were afraid of him, afraid of what might happen next. Terrified to do nothing, so that nothing would get better, so that nothing would not get worse. But the Eldest had never been timid or cautious, she pushed past them, entering the pub to speak with that homeless.

On her way, she passed the boy with the bird-chirp voice, who looked up and smiled at her politely. A gap toothed grin that accompanied full cheeks splotched with the color of cherry flavored cough syrup. It was almost as if on cue, “good evening ma'am”, he greeted her rising and bowing to her, like a gentleman. The Eldest froze in her feet, for the gesture was fitting for an older man from a time long forgotten. When she herself was a young girl not much older then the Bird-Chirp Boy. Certainly not now and certainly not from this child. And as she stood there pondering him, the boy returned to his game of Titty Touch. Running fingers along the screen of the filthy video game, all formality soon forgotten. 

It was true that The Bird-Chirp Boy looked uncannily like the stranger. To her, there was no doubt that it was his offspring. It was the man's broad fore-brow, his jutting cheekbones, his pronounced and butted chin. All insulated with the baby fat of youth. Innocence added in the child's eyes, vibrant like the aluminum green on a soda can, instead of the cold muted tone of dying leaves. However, there was something else there, something she sensed about The Boy that no child would posses. There was an acute sense of his surroundings that was not his own. The boy would suddenly be attentive as if instructed to do so, but she could not see by whom. Then he would return to his game as if nothing had happened. Something that left her entirely unsettled as she turned her attention to That Homeless.

Standing behind the man's shoulder she spoke into his ear with lips like orange peels, and breath that smelled like cream-of-something-soup. “Greetings stranger, I see you have joined us again...” But the man said nothing, he simply sat with his back to her. “I see you have returned from the old house you sought...the place where nobody dares set foot.” But That Homeless did not answer, so she tried something else. “I see you’ve brought this boy back with you, I can tell a resemblance between you...you are his father!” Still no answer, the Eldest Of These Women tried again. “Surely, stranger, you have noticed that there are no men about tonight. Nobody to stop you from coming back here, no questions on the streets, no bartender to pour your drink... This does not raise your curiosity?” Again no answer, and the Eldest returned to the street with nothing.

The story continues next monday!

That Homeless (Part 3) by.  Matt Herzberg

by. Matt Herzberg

Charging down the stairwell, my fleshy companion held close to my breast, like a mother cuddles a newborn baby to keep it safe. From it I could feel the emanation of...of ...well of a feeling of gratitude. A warm sense of approval, so satisfyingly comforting that I nearly stopped fleeing all together. It was a strange sensation, it made my chest feel pronounced like a bird unfurling majestic feathers. It made my arms feel strong and it made my shoulders feel doubly wide. It made my legs feel like jelly and my feet like soft sponges. 

This feeling we shared was so distracting, that I failed to notice my neighbor, smack in front of me, as we crashed right into each other during my hurried descent from the worst thing ever. This was my other neighbor, the one I really would not like to talk about. When we collided my hands went out into the air and I lost my very unsightly back which slipped harmlessly from my fingers. Through the air it tumbled, receptacle and everything, all the way to the bottom stoop, across the checkered linoleum, and mere inches from the door.

“Gosh, I'm sorry”, said my other neighbor, rubbing themselves down as if to make sure nothing was broken. All the business upstairs must have woken them because all they wore was a night-robe and dark sunglasses. Dark, dark, designer sunglasses, who would sleep in such an expensive accessory, and at night?!

“It’s my fault actually”, I tried to tell them, “I wasn’t watching where I was going” I dusted myself off, and the seeming of it all had shook the problem of pursuing vermin from my farthest thoughts. Now my only concern was being discovered as the harbinger of a mound of flesh who dutifully rippled in place safely still in it’s receptacle, patiently waiting pleasantly for me to retrieve it.

“It’s no bother” said my neighbor, “I was just meandering a bit before bed”. It was said as if this was something completely normal to do...and it wasn't! Thats when I noticed something strange as my neighbor turned around and made it’s way to the bottom stoop. Straight towards my very unsightly back! Oh what would I do when it was found? How would I explain such a thing? “Whats this then?” they asked leaning over to examine it.

The story continues next monday!

One Very Strange Neighbor And MY Very Unsightly Back! (Part 11) by.  Matt Herzberg

by Matt Herzberg

“Doolgeeze”, she corrected, “I call them doolgeeze and they are always very, very hungry.” As soon as she finished, Firetruck loomed from his perch preparing to strike and the others were no too far behind them. They weren’t playing anymore, at least not with each other, now they had spotted prey!

The command for the Doolgeeze to attack came when Keenie’s mouth separated and opened. When her pale, rubbery raspberry lips split and her brown and yellow bean teeth emerged from behind them. When the tucks of her mouth corners became folds for an expanding maw. When the dark black of her throat began to issue the sing-song voice I had only come to loathe all too well, as a dull pink tongue flopped around her gums like a dying fish. That sound, that awful, horrible sound of her singing seemed to bring the miscreant vermin together in one mind. The tune seemed to unite them and provide them with something that could only override their instincts. And it was me who they were focusing upon with their strange little hands and salivating mouths!

I did only what I thought I could, and not what I thought I should. The remaining blobs of flesh were in such pain after all, existing in a stage of torture, and through the link with my own unsightly back I knew that they desperately craved relief from their suffering. I reached out to the shelf that held them in their jars, and yanked it down to the ground smashing their transparent cells into hundreds of shards of broken glass. 

And the creatures? The Doolgeeze? Well they descended upon them, the promise of sweet desire come true as they feasted upon the living pieces of flesh. Like a box of treats had spilled across the floor for a pack of dubious hounds. Ravenous, uncontrolled, the vermin didn't even take care to avoid the broken glass. They ripped and chomped and chewed - even on each other by mistake! The floor became a flurry of bright red blood from fresh lacerations as the glass cut into the vermin, opening them from the inside by gutting their bellies. And as they lay dying, those poor pitiful vermin, they’re gorging stomachs ripping themselves open... Well to my extreme horror I witnessed the rebirth of the creature two-fold. Thats right, it must have been the way those face-shitting rat creatures reproduced. When their bulging undulating bellies ruptured from the sharp glass...two smaller Doolgeeze emerged!

They were underdeveloped and new to the world, almost cute in a horrifically fiendish way.  Their ears were tiny, their tails underdeveloped, and they had little stubs for hands where the front arms had not fully grown in. When they emerged from the gut of their parent, they tilted their heads towards the ceiling, noticing the song of their new mother, Keenie M. Keelie. Thats when they became truly terrible.

But don’t take my word for it! I had snatched up my very unsightly back and bounded for the front door as fast as I could!

The story continues next monday!

One Very Strange Neighbor And MY Very Unsightly Back! (Part 10) by.  Matt Herzberg

Mounds of flesh! Just like my very unsightly back but different still and suspended in place yet very much alive! How did I know this? I don’t know exactly, but I knew it for certain! The mounds of flesh were alive and they were conscious, and they were hurt and in pain and they were scared. Just like my own unsightly back...just like me! It was like I could feel them being afraid, like an emanation or a wave that started like a droplet in water and grew larger from the source. Of which was my own piece of flesh, the epicenter, floundering like a fish in the clay receptacle that Keenie had kept it in.

 I went closer to them, guarding my eyes from the bright light, my hand like a visor, as I examined them. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to be in much worse shape, and I knew why as my eyes scanned the once soft pink flesh that was scarred and bruised and cut, sick little splotches of purpilish-yellowish-red. There was something on the jars too, masking tape, a single piece each haphazardly stuck to the surface of each jar. On which was inscribed a letter in oil pencil. 4B, 1C, 3B, 3A...and on and so forth, but what did it mean? She was feeding them to the rat-like creatures, the ones that shit on her face. She was keeping them alive, like cataloged specimens, some of them were mostly fresh like my own, some where much worse for wear, and some still were like chewed upon so much that their exteriors were flayed and gnawed and torn apart.

 “THERE YOU ARE!” Exclaimed Keenie, she stood in the doorway a horde of the creatures gathered around her like a host of vermin. “I call them doolgeeze”, she said all cutsie (yuk!) as they skittered around her arms, shoulders, and a quick trip to the top floor to use the bathroom before chasing each other like mean little children would. Biting each others long feathered fur tails, clawing at each other’s eyes, and showering poor Keenie, that filthy and disgusting thing, in a wave of bouncing-sticking-smearing droppings. What was the worst part? Oh no not even that!

She had dressed them all up in tiny little outfits, all of them each one unique, and there were too many to count. There was a little policeman outfit on one, a little construction worker for another, a little maid, a little butler, a little jet pilot, a little racecar driver. One of them had an apron, one of them had  raincoat, one of them had a poncho, and one of them had on oversized glasses. One was a holiday helper, one wore a home-makers dress, and one (the one that I recognized) wore red painted sides and wheels and long white ladder on it’s back.

 “Firetruck!”, she commanded and the one in question came to attention. It was poised on her forearm, it’s beady eyes budding out of its skull with anticipation as it feverishly throttled its tiny hands in and out of it’s mouth.

 “Theyre alive!” I told her, “theyre alive and your feeding them to those things!”

The story continues next monday!

One Very Strange Neighbor And MY Very Unsightly Back! (Part 9) by.  Matt Herzberg

The neighbor, Keenie helps me into her filthy apartment and she’s bent me over an exam table of sorts, probably some rummage she found in her alley scavenging trips. She puts me down like I was just delicate laundry, folded and neat. How she got me upstairs ill leave to the imagination, but I'll add that I've been using a new diet recently, of applecores and boiled plum pits and chicken broth. So when you imagine this, picture me lithe and skinny and easy to carry.

She replaced her large spectacles with a set of high powered goggles, which extended from her eyeballs like disgusting antennae. She had tools as well, waiting on an old, plastic fast-food tray. Points to prod & clubs to bludgeon, thats what she had there, and edges to slice with and edges to cut with and trim if need be I suppose.

When I pulled up the quartertail bottoms of my shirt, she peered in real close and began poking and prodding with shivering cold instruments. I could feel my unsightly back and the extra skin that formed outside my notice, to hide its unlawful descent from the rest of my body. But now, as Keenie went to work examining it, that flesh did curl, the mound of it resting at the small of my traitorous, retreating, unsightly back. The flesh all but got up to leave when those frigid metal instruments were brought into bare. But that wasn't the end of it, no sir!

That strange dirty, singing, grime clad and encrusted neighbor of mine began to giggle. “Oh my”, she said, “oh indeed”. Like she was marveled by the lump of flesh that quirked and dipped and retracted from her poking and prodding advances.

“Whats going on back there?” I asked, but it did me no good as the investigating woman just continued to caw and to coo. It was as if she was tickled, it was as if she’d been finked. And then when I though that I had just enough of this whole ordeal...SHE BIT ME!

Yes, she bit me, her teeth sunk in deep. She fastened large moist lips around what was the flesh on my unsightly back. I swear it was like kissing, that was the sound, the noise that alerted me that something beyond my comprehension was in fact happening! Her mouth was quite warm, her tongue was quite wet and I could feel her trace circles all over that lump of my flesh. But none of those sensations were arousing, none of it prepared me for what came next, when her straight, perfect lip stick stained teeth sunk deep into my skin. She was testing me or testing the flesh more likely. Biting and chewing and grinding her molars back and forth over and over. Like it was fat, like it was gristle, like it was savory and delicious. But why? Was this her therapy that the other neighbor had spoken of so affordably positive, such that I couldn’t resist calling up to her? I had to know, so I stayed to find out, but it wasn't as if I could leave. In the way that I was now flattened out and sprawling, with the gurgling folds of my unsightly back logged in her throat so much and so far down that it seemed as if she might start gagging. Not stopping until tears formed at the crests of her eyes and slid down the sides of her cheek. 

Around the pain, I felt it should stop, but not before I could reconcile the simple absurdity of what was happening. But by then it was too late, for what I felt next was her releasing the biting hold. My flesh went numb and cold and If I could but turn and look, I’de find her perched over me with a large syringe now poised from fingers covered in oversized yellow rubber gloves. The needle of which pressed firmly into my unsightly back, just above where it started and centered straight on my spine! Between the folds of my skin the needle sunk, and in reaction began to puff out, like filling a ball with an air pump.

The story continues next monday!

One Very Strange Neighbor And MY Very Unsightly Back! (Part 4) by.  Matt Herzberg

So this very strange neighbor of mine, who's quest to be clean has never been answered. This neighbor who's apartment is covered in straps and lashes and old garbage bags. Who dresses in splotchy, stained sweaters and patched up slacks. Whom balances the end of a long, thin, needle like nose, with a pair of oversized black framed glasses. She hears me down here, crashing around while I knock things over. It’s really from all of the twisting and contorting, my attempts to be certain that my bulging, fleshy, corpulent lower back was what it was and what I thought it might be!

Thats when I hurt myself, the unsightly back wins and I am caught mid spasm and in pain. It started with a CRIK! A CRIK and a CRACK that surely sent me sprawling down to the old wood floor that smelled faintly like rotting and of old oil soap. There I would lay, all flat on my face and practically paralyzed with stiffness and pain. It felt as though there were a thousand bald bogglers standing on each others shoulders, with the bottom one planting the bare bottoms of his rough surfaced bunions directly into my lower back.

I laid there in mid spasm for the better part of a day, until the afternoon, when by chance my neighbor came by to find me. This is a different neighbor, one that I don't care to talk much about. That neighbor came by to borrow some sweet, and anyways found me when I asked that particular individual to open the door.

"You should see Keelie", said the other neighbor that I refuse to describe. "She's good with backs and joints and stuff like that."

"Good how exactly?", I wanted to know. "Is she licensed, is she practiced, is she refutable?"

"I don't know anything about those kinds of things", scoffed this other neighbor of mine after helping me to my feet. "But if you want to feel better", they told me, "you'll call up to her."

Which is exactly what I had to do, call up to her, because I was miserable and ridden and couldn't move or do much. So I opened up my faucets and pulled out all the stuffing from all of the pipes. I bared to listen to her insufferable howling that would be called singing, waiting for her to stop between breaths, so that I might start a calling.

"What's that??", I hear her say when she hears what I have to tell her. I've been hunched over the sink, serenading with painful groans and echoes. Into my scummy old faucet head, like it was a starlight microphone, and like I was a mangled lounge crooner lamenting the end of a revived career. "I like it", she says, "I like it very much, I'll be down there at once!" Her exuberance probably comes from a dire need to gain my approval, as I can't imagine someone so horridly filthy gets many social calls.

The story continues next monday!

One Very Strange Neighbor And MY Very Unsightly Back! (Part 3) by.  Matt Herzberg