An excerpt of "Walter's Demons"

​

by Jesse Krenzel

​

Walter Borroughs eyed the building through the rain with an air of distaste. Her coat, a knee-length duster smudged with mud and burnt through in several places, felt sticky against her back from both sweat and water.

​

And blood. Her job was a simple one—destroy the monster or die trying. The shack before her was thick with decay, laced with dry rot and termites. The roof had burned several years prior, leaving a skeleton of a shelter behind. She had tracked the creature to this location, this place of disgust and abhorrence. There was a tinge of revulsion in the wind and she scowled against the water that fell around her, dripping off her wide-brim hat and flooding her boots.

​

Okay, no, let’s pause.

​

I’m not sure why I’m trying to tell my story from the third-person. I guess it sounds a little grittier, a little more badass, where in truth I was terrified out of my mind. That’s me, Walter, a woman, standing in the rain without an umbrella—like an idiot.

I used to hate my name, given to me by my mother, who birthed four boys. When asked, she said it was for the sake of me not feeling “left out.”

​

That I was a woman raised alongside men marked me through my growing years, to the expectations in preschool I could not and would not meet, to my experiences joining the police force. I was always shocked when met with condescension and general disregard.

​

Maybe my mother had just thought that Walter was a cute name for a girl. Whatever it was, it is mine and I wear it proudly.

The rain started coming down in torrents, but I kept my position, eyes clear and set on the shack. Waiting.

​

The air was hot despite the water, dense and humid. It felt abnormal, but then again, what was normal anymore?

​

It didn’t used to be like this, but then I married the man of my dreams. He could’ve mentioned he was a demon before the wedding.

​

“A nice demon,” he stressed on our honeymoon, when I discovered matches and brimstone in his luggage and confronted him.

​

“You know, the fallen angel kind destined to spend the rest of time on earth seeking redemption for the wrongs committed in a past life-slash-universe.”

​

He said the slash out loud, just like that. It was those kinds of cute oddities that I fell in love with to begin with. It hit me then that this sweet, mild-mannered man was a creature from another universe. In that one instant my life became much, much more complicated.

Swept into a web of drama, demons, and darkness, I became a force for good, one of the few mortals who battled the darkness that threatened to swallow humanity every day... because this particular demon, the demon I married, specialized in one specific area of redemption: monster hunting.

​

Curious to see how it turns out for Walter? Please purchase Volume 1 Andromeda in our bookstore.

"As I Cannot" from the Poetry Section

by Christine Penko

An uncertainty of poetic conviction compels me to search the day for signs and portents.

There, a small dog squats in a patch of ivy. Above, a handful of crows harry a great, golden hawk.

A hump-backed old woman thrusts two metal canes through Spring’s young grasses.

Two more crows mate at the bus stop. The day reels on.

Rusty water stands in a broken bird bath. I tire of writing about birds.

Their flutter frightens me: the mechanical tick of their heads sharp beaks that pick and pry.

It doesn’t matter they can fly.

"Desiree" from the Lyrics Section

by Kim Michalowski