Everything That's Underneath

In Kristi DeMeester's transformative dark fantasy collection, Everything That’s Underneath, the author explores the places most people avoid. A hole in an abandoned lot, an illness twisting your loved one into someone you don’t recognize, lust that pushes you further and further until no one can hear your cry for help. In these 18 stories, the characters cannot escape the evil that is haunting them. They must make a choice: accept it and become part of what terrifies them the most or allow it to consume them and live in fear forever. Crawl across the earth and dig in the dirt. Feel it. Tearing at your nails, gritty between your teeth, filling your nostrils. Consume it until it has consumed you. For there you will find the voices that have called from the shadows, the ones that promise to cherish you only to rip your body to shreds. Table of Contents "Everything That’s Underneath" "The Wicked Shall Come Upon Him" "To Sleep Long, To Sleep Deep" "The Fleshtival" "The Beautiful Nature of Venom" "Like Feather, Like Bone Worship" "Only What She Bleeds" (short story original to collection) "The Tying of Tongues" "The Marking" "The Long Road" "The Lightning Bird" "The Dream Eater" "Daughters of Hecate" Birthright (novelette original to collection) "All That Is Refracted, Broken" "December Skin" "Split Tongues" "To Sleep in the Dust of the Earth" About the Author Kristi DeMeester is the author of Beneath, a novel published by Word Horde. Her short fiction has been reprinted or appeared in Ellen Datlow's The Best Horror of the Year Volume 9, Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volumes 1 and 3, in addition to publications such as Black Static, Apex Magazine, and several others. In her spare time, she alternates between telling people how to pronounce her last name and how to spell her first. This is her first short fiction collection. Excerpt From: "Everything That's Underneath" Carin left the door ajar for Benjamin. He’d come inside only once that day smelling of sawdust and ice and swallowed the sandwich she’d made for him, pecked her on the cheek, and returned to his project. When he went, cold air swirled through the kitchen and caught at her hair and cheeks, and she stilled her hands which reached to grasp the shoulders of his coat. “A door,” he’d told her. “We have a door.” “No. Something solid. Something good,” he’d said. The next week he’d rented a saw, borrowed a truck from Tom next door, and dragged home a pile of lumber. At night, the smell of cedar leaked inside of her, and she dreamed of great trees, tangles of limbs and roots reaching deep into the earth under a blood red sky. Redwoods and oaks and cedars wrapping tight around her body, squeezing until she fought for breath. Her ribs and sternum cracking under the impossible weight. “I don’t like the smell,” she’d told him that morning, watching the liquid movements of his body as he pulled on his thermals and boots. Every movement calculated and precise. She’d fallen in love with him while watching those delicate hands fold and unfold a napkin. When was the last time he’d danced? She couldn’t remember. Even that was a lie. Of all the things she’d learned to believe these past three months, this was the easiest. “Everyone likes the smell. It keeps moths away.” “I guess I don’t.” “It won’t be as strong once it’s done. You won’t even notice it.” “Sure.” “Don’t come out, okay? I want it to be a surprise.” For hours that day, she’d stood at the kitchen window, her hand against the glass, listening to the sharp bite of metal against wood. The sound of her husband slowly, carefully putting it together again. Something solid. Something good. Outside, full dark had fallen, and still the saw whined. Surely a door was a fairly simple thing? Benjamin was no carpenter, but he’d watched videos online, read articles, and it seemed easy enough. A Saturday project. Something he could finish in one day, maybe two if he ran into any snags or really screwed something up. He’d hidden himself behind the large shed in their backyard. When the realtor had shown them the house, Benjamin had turned to her and smiled, slow and quiet. The secret smile he kept just for her. His lips mouthing the word “studio.” They’d put an offer on the house that afternoon. He’d just started the renovations when his vision began to blur and his toes had started to tingle and go numb. Now and then she would see the top of his hat or a sudden dervish of sawdust caught in the air, but she never actually saw him. She tried not to worry. The doctors had said his prognosis was good, that he should be able to carry on as normal with a few slight modifications. That she shouldn’t feel the need to hover over him, waiting and watching for another day like the one where she’d found him on the floor of the shed, shaking and whispering that he couldn’t feel his legs. After four doctors, two specialists, and six months, they’d finally received a diagnosis. A pink-lipped, blonde doctor, her voice light and giggling like a young girl’s, telling him that he would never dance again, that M.S. would slowly take away everything he had ever known. Ever loved. How Carin had wanted to slap that baby-voiced, Barbie-faced bitch and tell her to talk like an adult instead of a goddamn child. Her palms had itched with the want. Again, she went to the kitchen window and looked for him in the gloom. He hadn’t turned on any lights. She frowned. He did this sometimes. When he was immersed in a rehearsal or new chore‐ ography, he would forget to eat or to sleep. Once, when they’d first been married, he hadn’t come home, lost himself in the tying together of music and muscle, and she’d spent the night curled in the bathtub, the water turning cold around her. The next morning he’d hugged her to him, his chest and stomach hard under the dark sweater he wore, and swore that he would love her until his body couldn’t remember how to breathe. Still. He shouldn’t be using a saw in the dark, and she moved toward the door that led into their backyard. She called his name into the black, the wind whipping her words away from her before the winter night swallowed them. Shivering, she stood in the doorway taking her right foot on and off of the top stair. The saw came to life for a brief moment before settling once more into silence. Read More from Kristi DeMeester "Damnatio ad beastias" - Issue 89 of Apex Magazine "Mothers Who Consume" - Issue 98 of Apex Magazine "With Lips Sewn Shut" - Issue 113 of Apex Magazine