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    Delightfully Twisted Tales: The Worst of Both Worlds (Volume Eight)
    Delightfully Twisted Tales: The Worst of Both Worlds (Volume Eight)
    Delightfully Twisted Tales: The Worst of Both Worlds (Volume Eight)
    Ebook56 pages35 minutes

    Delightfully Twisted Tales: The Worst of Both Worlds (Volume Eight)

    By Nicky Drayden

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    About this ebook

    Maintenance workers tend to a living ship with mental issues, a tentacled alien competes in her first triathlon on Earth, a man goes to the ends of the Earth and beyond for the perfect anniversary present, and a horny translator hopes to put the "contact" in an impending first contact. This delightfully twisted collection of four short stories is easily devoured in one sitting and will leave you hungry for more.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNicky Drayden
    Release dateSep 18, 2014
    ISBN9781310376351
    Delightfully Twisted Tales: The Worst of Both Worlds (Volume Eight)
    Author

    Nicky Drayden

    Nicky Drayden’s short fiction has appeared in publications such as Shimmer and Space and Time. She is a systems analyst and resides in Austin, Texas, where being weird is highly encouraged, if not required. Her debut novel, The Prey of Gods, was a best of the year pick by Book Riot, Vulture, and RT Book Reviews.

    Read more from Nicky Drayden

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      Book preview

      Delightfully Twisted Tales - Nicky Drayden

      DELIGHTFULLY TWISTED TALES:

      VOLUME EIGHT

      THE WORST OF BOTH WORLDS

      by

      Nicky Drayden

      * * * * *

      PUBLISHED BY:

      Nicky Drayden

      Copyright © 2014 by Nicky Drayden

      Cover Adapted from

      Vegas Octopus Art by Lewis Minor, Creative Commons

      http://www.flickr.com/photos/31284576@N06/5106533804/

      https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

      Discover other Delightfully Twisted Tales by Nicky Drayden:

      Volume One – Close Encounters of the Worst Kind

      Volume Two – Fire, Fangs and Brimstone

      Volume Three – The Weirdos Next Door

      Volume Four – Wisps, Spells and Faerie Tales

      Volume Five – Love and Other Filthy Habits

      Volume Six – Family Antimatters

      Volume Seven - The Wide, Wide World of Weird

      Volume Eight - The Worst of Both Worlds

      * * * * *

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Our Drunken Tjeng

      Bipedal

      The Atmosphere Man

      Breva

      OUR DRUNKEN TJENG

      BY NICKY DRAYDEN

      First Published in Daily Science Fiction, 2012

      With a fine bone knife I make my incision, cutting back the sticky membrane of Our Tjeng's hull. I slip my hand inside and carefully widen the tear until it's big enough for me to step through. Our Tjeng has blessed Kae and me with gills to breathe within his walls. The viscous liquid is clear and burns my eyes, tart and slick on my tongue.

      He's drunk as always, Our Tjeng, our fathership. And yet he leads our flock across the stars. Him and his bulging, sick liver -- big as a hundred men, and it shouldn't even be half that size. I swim towards Kae as she shaves tumor from flesh a slice at a time. Her firm muscles tense and flex beneath her hairless, pink skin. She cusses Our Tjeng, her words crisp even through the liquid.

      I touch her shoulder. She startles.

      Your time is up, I tell her.

      We're civil. There's too much at stake not to be. The flock cannot afford to lose another fathership, and Our Tjeng needs us caretakers to keep him functioning.

      Let me work beside you, she pleads. There's plenty of tumor for the both of us.

      I ignore her and set out my net to hold the hard, white tumor cuttings. Her own net already brims. An impressive haul for the day. With a haul like that, people will start noticing.

      It's my shift. You need your rest, I say.

      I feel fine. Kae smiles at me, fatty pieces of pink liver stuck between her teeth.

      I cringe and try to ignore her. Try to keep my mind on the job. It's a good job, working the liver. Quiet work. It's my shift, Kae. You need to go.

      For the good of all, she mumbles as she gathers the ends of her net together. She then pauses to press her hand against one of the black veins of Our Tjeng's hull. Feel that, Li? Our Tjeng's heart is calling me. Soon you can have the liver all to yourself.

      And then I'm alone. I inspect Kae's cuts, all precision. But I see the traces of her handiwork here and there, tucked so discreetly out of the way that no one but me would notice. A pit burns in my stomach at the thought of her eating of Our Tjeng's flesh, and yet Kae's steady hand is our crew's greatest asset. To turn her in would be a death sentence for our fathership. So I put up with her ways and ignore the taste of sick in the back of my throat.

      * * * * *

      Qiao's deathrite is highly attended. She stands proudly among her peers, and everyone shares kind words. We pretend not to notice the tremor in her hand as she sips ichor from a chalice made of Our Tjeng's bone. Qiao worked the heart for many, many cycles. Delicate work. Delicate hands. Work meant for the young, like Kae and myself.

      Our fathership is stubborn. He refuses to make more caretakers because he thinks he is not sick. He is too drunk to notice that our crops are failing. Too busy enjoying the sexual pleasures of his flock to listen to our pleas.

      Kae smiles at me as Qiao's blood is spilt and collected into vessels to ferment. They will be seeking her replacement soon.

      * *

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