Description

Published by Gerri R. Gray for HellBound Books in 2022, this story is of a man who had to watch his wife die—twice. From cancer, and from being infected. It answers the question: What would you do if you had to watch your wife die twice? At just over 1,000 words, this one is very short, almost flash fiction, and it’s a stinger. It has perhaps my best ice pick-ending moment, so painful it’s good. This was also a little bit of therapy for me, after my fiancé died of cancer in 2018. It hurt to write it, but…

The set-up for the anthology—titled The Toilet Zone: The Royal Flush—was wonderfully pulpy, as each story is just long enough, it says, for the average “visit” to the throne room. The last page of every story reminds you to flush.