Gutshot: Stories
Amelia Gray
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 0374175446
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A woman creeps through the ductwork of a quiet home. A medical procedure reveals an object of worship. A carnivorous reptile divides and cauterizes a town. Amelia Gray's curio cabinet expands in Gutshot, where isolation and coupling are pushed to their dark and outrageous edges. A master of the macabre, Gray's work is not for the faint of heart or gut: lick at your own risk.
Victoria. We ended up at the Days Inn in Corpus. Kyle examined a road map in his underpants while I took the bucket to the ice machine. A crowd of tourists were standing in the laundry room. They were speaking languages. A young woman touched my ice bucket. “We are looking for where Selena was murdered,” she said. I said I didn’t know what she meant. “Fifteen years ago at this very Days Inn,” the woman said. “I am disappointed in you.” An older woman was leaned up against the ice machine. She
pit. The trivet did its work from there, pushing me back and down, into the hole that seemed to have been dug to suit me, complete with a rise in the dirt for my neck and a uniform pile just below my feet. The trivet settled in the center of my sternum. It grew cold there and heavier than before, though I felt no desire to move from under its wind-removing weight. I saw now that it was a stone like any other. I found that once I stopped struggling and held very still, barely breathing against its
knows—maybe we would have looked away, have one of them do a solo piece while we backed in the dirt. There was the assistant, beloved by all on the lot next door, who was placed in a grave we left unmarked but for a stone bench so his boss could sit and yell Martin! Get on the fucking call! and similar for many glad hours. The studio even financed a granite letter tray. Every full moon, they say, a ghostly figure deposits three duplicates of a contract to be sent to Legal. People ask about the
fingernail under the wrapped bandage to scratch a spot. “First-class stamps cost forty-nine cents apiece,” William said. He was halfway through the sentence before he was overcome and had to grip the countertop to complete it as the bile rose. “We have some with birds on them, but I’m not sure the skylark is featured.” She hefted the cat carrier onto the counter. It registered just over thirteen pounds on the metered scale. Inside the carrier, an orange tabby let out a low warning growl.
was severing the feet from a fat hen. In the dream, the hen’s yellow claws pinched a scroll upon which were written the words ULYSSES GRANT, THE FINEST PRESIDENT. On waking, she rushed to my chamber and sat shivering at the foot of the bed while she told the tale. Her right eye crossed handsomely whenever her spirit was roused, and at that moment was so askew it appeared as if one eye watched the antechamber for an intruder as the other fixed upon me. I was reminded of the day I first met her,