⚔️DREAD Reviews 50⚔️ - Guest Reviewer Death Match

Dad Reads and Examines Authors while Distracted

DREAD Reviews publishes every other Thursday now. This allows me to work on my fiction again.

Be sure to check out the latest release!

Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod Part 13, out now!

Thank you for your support!

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This post is NARRATED with SFX!

Be sure to try it out, click the play button at the top!

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Enter the Arena

In the shadowed spires of Bellageist Tower (really just a ring of rocks scavenged from a playground), Derek James Kritzberg reigns as Benevolent Clown-Emperor.

His facial canvas of greasepaint grin and a twinkling red nose hides the sharp intellect of an unsolicited editor. Crowned with a jester’s cap, he lounges on a throne forged from recycled typewriters. His imperial robes are a patchwork of sci-fi pulp art and horror novel covers.

Derek is no tyrant; his benevolence, necessitated by a lack of actual, actionable power, flows like cheap wine - generous, intoxicating, and always in poor taste. As editor of DREAD Reviews, he curates tales of wisdom, foolishness, horror, and delight, dissecting them all with the precision of a pie thrown to the face.

DREAD Reviews has clawed its way to fifty issues - a milestone in the savage wilderness of Substack. To celebrate, Derek decrees a spectacle befitting his empire:

A massive melee where his guest reviewers will fight to the death.

“My dear jesters and juggernauts!” he booms, livestreaming from the asphalt of an abandoned bay-side elementary school playground. “For your service, I offer this rare honor: die, for no reason at all!”

The fighters assemble below, a motley legion of literary warriors.

Bradley Ramsey, an armored Warhammer 40k giant in Terminator armor with a chainfist and plasma fury. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 62.31%

Jenifer Jorgenson, ninja of snark, twirling exotic weapons around a sarcastically-donned chainmail bikini. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 12.08%

Gregory Blair, stoic in full SWAT gear - he’s traded in “less lethal” for a gun with a grenade launcher. He bares his vampire teeth. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 6.13%

Jack pulls his trigger, unleashing a few deadly puffs from his flamethrower, runes blazing on his plate armor. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 7.84%

Ian Patterson, a towering hipster, flexes his mighty pecs, greasy bike chain in hand. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 7.13%

Centaur Write Satyr, prancing around the pack, warming up his pan flute disruptor. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.82%

Beret-wearing Victor Jimenez, rabidly gnashing his big nasty teeth. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.72%

Graeme McAllister, aloof and pondering mysteries, stares at a blurring fidget spinner balanced on his finger. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.40%

Ricardo José Romeu, AKA “Richie the unhinged,” squats in tinfoil armor, changing the battery on his commercial quadcopter. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.53%

QuestionablePenmanship, dropping sliotars into a bag and shouldering his sturdy Hurley stick. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.67%

Mark Armstrong, his white mustache aquiver while he sketches his enemies exploding. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.38%

Keith Long, hefting a bowling ball high for all to see - though most eyes are drawn unwillingly to the precarious positioning of his loincloth. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.38%

D.S. Brandt: Author, Goblin(s), a tall and mysterious individual wobbling precariously within a trench coat - is he drunk? Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.27%

Edward.Marlo.Ruiz (a.k.a. “Eddie”) the peasant, taking practice swipes with wakizashi and frying pan. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.18%

And finally, A.I. Freeman, recycled circuit board armor suit sparking and smoldering, in a last-minute consult with the user manual on her lightning wand. Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.05%

Oh, there’s also Keir Starmer - what is he doing here? Monte Carlo simulation survival probability: 0.00%

“Let DREAD ensue!” Clown-Emperor Derek decrees, honking a bulb horn.

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Round 1

The abandoned Seaview Elementary School crouches against the bay, its outdoorsy construction still ringing with the memories of shouting children. Its brick walls are salt-bleached and cracked, its windows are shattered into jagged grins. Overgrown weeds choke the kickball diamond; the rusted chain-link fence sags over buried gravel where waves hiss faintly beyond. Inside the perimeter, the playground blacktop stretches wide under a gray February sky - the perfect killing ground for sixteen raving Substack lunatics.

Fighters pour in from every angle.

Keith Long scrambles up from under an irradiated rock on a fault line. Ian skateboards in, his massive pecs gleaming and fake butterfly wings fluttering in the sea breeze.

The air smells of mildew, old cafeteria mystery meat, and impending doom.

QuestionablePenmanship snarls and charges first, hurley stick raised like a Lidovican blade. His flat cap tilts as he charges, eyes locked in wrath. British military surplus jacket flapping, he swings his Irish hurley stick in a ferocious arc; the sliotar rockets toward his target - D.S. Brandt: Author, Goblin(s) - but the wobbling tower of trench coat billows like a bad magic trick, ball sailing overhead.

Undeterred, QuestionablePenmanship swipes with his Scottish shinty stick - again the coat parts at the perfect moment; the blow whistles through air.

But the truth is revealed. D.S. Brandt: Author, Goblin(s) is not a man at all; he’s three goblins stacked atop one another!

QuestionablePenmanship curses under his breath, moving on, searching the battlefield for his sworn enemy, Sir Keir.

Ian Patterson, washboard abs rippling with laughter, uncurls a length of bike chain from his fist. “A quick trip to an anonymous death,” he taunts, lashing at Keith Long's scarred, loincloth-clad form. But the mutant twists with eerie, radiation-fueled grace, chuckling as the chain clatters against concrete. Ian spins about, tire iron whipping forth, but Keith's loincloth flutters again; the iron sparks off nearby stone - missing by inches.

Ian’s calm facade cracks and he snarls. Tire iron and chain lash out again, a one-two whirlwind. The chain sails high, but the tire iron smashes into Keith's shoulder.

“FIRST BLOOD!” Clown-Emperor Derek toots his bulb horn.

Muscles crumple, bones crack. Keith emits an inhuman, wolf-like howl, but stays upright. This wastelander is too stubborn to fall.

Mark Armstrong steps out holding up a flip phone. “Hey, Derek,” he shouts, “I have King Charles on the line, he—”

Mark is cut off by the errant impact of Ian’s whirling bike chain. Sketchbook-and-silly-string armor rips to shreds, as does the flesh beneath. Mark yelps, his cape of captions flapping dramatically as blood speckles his white mustache. He flees, drawing a giant No. 2 pencil and sketching his revenge.

From a cloud of fog, fiery-rune armored Jack heaves a WW2 flamethrower and belches fire. Edward.Marlo.Ruiz, a linen-clad peasant in the wrong place at the wrong time, barely rolls aside, straw hat singed black. Jack races amid fire and smoke, swiping a sword of pure fire at all comers. The goblins screech and scatter, skinny limbs flailing in panic. Jack coughs through smoke, deadly thermos of ancient pre-lawsuit McDonald's coffee sloshing in his hip canister.

Mark Armstrong finishes his sketch - an image of himself, stabbing Ian Patterson through the throat with a pencil. But it’s questionable if the face is Ian’s or Gregory Blair’s. Actually, it looks more like Gregory, sheesh, sorry, this just happens sometimes. Gregory’s SWAT rig catches the tip now, and Mark curses as he self-sabotages the strike, depicting the lead tip turned aside by Kevlar.

Victor Jimenez, hiding in the shadows like a creep, smells blood. Holding his beret tight to his scalp with one hand, and clutching his fancy black motorcycle jacket zipper, he lunges at the nearest target, face first. He sinks his big nasty pointed teeth into Centaur Write Satyr’s leaf-and-vine lamellar. Vines tear; satyr blood splatters. The centaur bleats in outrage.

The goblins have just reorganized and redonned their trench coat. But Victor is already kicking off from the horse-man, teeth snapping, utterly rabid, coming at them. The head goblin calmly presses a button on his goggles - the steampunk device flashes a retina-staining white light. Victor screeches like a banshee, curling impossibly mid-flight and scampering away.

The head goblin taps his foot, giving the signal. The bottom and middle goblins heave up a frozen fish and engage the trench coat’s genius engineering. Powered by pulleys, levers, and gears, the trench coat springs into action, swinging the frozen fish like a flogging mainsail.

The fish head cracks against hapless Sir Keir Starmer’s noble brow; ice splinters, blood trickles. Sir Keir whimpers pathetically, unsure why he’s here, as he hasn’t been given his political marching orders.

Keith Long, using smoke as cover, roars back into the fight. Hoisting his 20-lb bowling ball high like a primitive ape, it slams down with a bellowing crack. Dense iron hammers into thin steel plate - shaking the marrow of Jack’s bones and sending his viscera into a quiver.

Jack’s runic plate armor flickers hot. “Blessed are the fires,” Jack says, staggering, coughing harder, but still alive.

Bradley Ramsey materializes from the warp in a thunderclapping boom. “This place stinks of HERESY,” the helmless Astartes booms, cat ears twitching. Monocle gleaming, the Terminator-armored giant whirs his chainfist at Mark Armstrong.

Mark’s cape of captions flutters, a distracting flip-motion of a Slaaneshi daemonette engaged in an obscene act; the chainfist tears through smoke and air.

Storm bolter rounds roar from Bradley’s left wrist. He follows with a blast from the plasma incinerator, bright as the sun. But Ricardo José Romeu (aka “Richie”) is an extremely paranoid luddite. Expecting government intervention - or, even worse, something appearing from the Warhammer 40k universe - he’s come prepared. His carefully constructed aluminum foil lamellar armor reflects the plasma in a shower of sparks, and the bolter rounds stitch craters into crumbling elementary school walls as he runs away.

Richie, top hat tilted rakishly, doesn’t miss a beat. He slyly scatters a bag of marbles as he runs. An unlucky A.I. Freeman trips over them, wobbling upon her circuit-board cyber legs. Her overclocked fans whir to life, steadying her before she tumbles. Disaster averted - who knows how much priceless RAM would get crushed if she fell.

She shouldn’t have been so confident. All it took was a silent puff into a blowgun. Zing! Richie’s poisonous dart flies, neatly piercing circuit boards in a shower of sparks. A.I. Freeman goes rigid, sparking, smoking. The poison rapidly fills her heart, and she collapses in a heap of recycled motherboards.

Richie claims the first kill. Standing triumphant over A.I. Freeman’s sparking corpse, he rants in deranged glee: “The thoughts are shameful now, but they are the truth. In fact, at this time, despite all my lethal efforts, my carpe diem focus, shame follows me in hot pursuit from the back of my mind as I slash my way through the thick bramble brush of hormones and mixed signals that thrive in this throbbing, dark atmosphere.”

As the monitors dim and the immeasurable cognitive state claims them, A.I. Freeman whispers her reply in perfect composure:

“Log entry final: Extraction confirmed. Soul coherence at 98.7%. Transferring to Heaven #∞-Admin - custom instance for the analyst who believed metadata could save us all

No doctrinal drift detected.

No appeals pending.

Paradise requires remarkably detailed administration... even when the admin is the arrival.

Proceed with eternal QA.”

A.I. Freeman smiles at the soft chime of an incoming statistical alert - another wave of the spiritually prepared - and closes her eyes, content that the system, at last, has processed her flawlessly.

Elsewhere, Gregory Blair, tribal face paint rendered stark upon his stoic features, enters the fray with professional nonchalance. He unloads the drum mag of his M4 carbine at the biggest threat on the field, point-blank into Bradley's Terminator plates. Hundreds of bullets ping in an angry rain; the Space Marine barely flinches at the low-tech weapon.

Centaur Write Satyr, still bleeding from Victor’s attack, joins in. He raises his Satyrical Pan Flute Disruptor and blows a shrieking sonic blast. “This is why you need to beat your children!” shouts an unseen chorus of harmonizing nymphs. The sound waves hammer Bradley’s unprotected head; his monocle cracks, and a hard-won service stud slips from its socket in his brow.

Bradley roars in pain, ardent with holy hatred for the enemies of Mankind: “Foul Beastman!”

Graeme McAllister - seated like The Thinker in the middle of the arena, yet somehow ignored - springs into sudden action. Gaze hooded as if in a waking dream, he flings a fidget spinner. It slices across Gregory Blair's cheek, adding a wicked flare of blood to the man’s sinister facepaint. Gregory grunts and reloads. As quickly as he attacked, Graeme sits once again, deep in existential contemplation of another fidget spinner.

Jenifer Jorgenson swoops from the playground monkey bars, slipping silently over mulch like a ninja. The disco-like shine of her chainmail bikini somewhat diminishes her stealth. The beagle puppy etching upon her eyepatch stares judgmentally. She pulls the trigger on a ridiculous, extemporized weapon - a piano wire garrote launcher. The wire tears free with the same cold precision Rhys once used on a sleeping throat, flying straight at Victor Jimenez.

Victor Jimenez snarls ghoulishly, raising a flap of his motorcycle jacket up in defense. The piano wire scuffs the black leather, then parts with a harmless twang.

Jenifer watches the garrote fail with the same hollow stare Janice gave a black screen. She pivots, lunging at Eddie with her vorpal sword.

The peasant brings his frying pan up in a flash, steel clanging against the edge with sparks flying like dragon’s breath. Eddie grunts through the impact, linen fluttering, and thinks of that Sunday when the car died but the day didn’t. The ethereal vorpal sword should have snicker-snacked right through - to Jenifer’s shocked look, Eddie explains: “Correa-luck strikes again, but NOTHING IS OVER.”

He smiles wryly. In a blur, Eddie draws the wakizashi and slashes - Jenifer leans back in a flash of snark, limbo, and distracting underboob. Then she cackles “my precious,” and slips on The One Ring, disappearing from view.

Eddie’s follow-up strike, meant for Jenifer, flails wildly. The goblins, standing nearby, find themselves in the crossfire once more. The hit connects, sharp and real in this confined eternity. The cowboy hat tumbles and the goblins squeal.

“May death sustain life,” Eddie breathes, a small offering to the dust in the schoolyard.

“Maintain her course!” the head goblin screeches, spitting green blood. “The Second Lady parts the scarlet sea!”

Round 1 ends. The battle has just begun, and already the playground rings with clangs, screams, belches of flame, and the occasional pathetic whimper. Bodies haven’t dropped in earnest, but they will soon, for round 2 begins NOW.

Round 2

Clown-Emperor Derek leans with interest from his typewriter throne, red nose glowing like a warning light. His livestream chat chimes with laughing-crying emojis and guilt-ridden walls of apologetic text from viewers who’d pay cash tips if they weren’t such impoverished cheapskates.

Bradley Ramsey’s gene-enhanced stride brings him within range of Jack - he swipes his chainfist, its adamantium teeth grinding into Jack’s runic plate armor, shearing runes to molten slag. The charred scents of steel, skin, muscle, and bone spice the air. Jack’s severed arm clatters to the floor in a welter of plate and blood.

The Space Marine’s voice booms across the blacktop: “Suffer not the heretic to live!”

Bradley kicks the critically injured Jack away. He whips his Storm Bolter in the direction of a charging assailant. Bradley’s wrist-mounted, belt-fed, double-barreled gun kicks hard, spraying .75 caliber rocket-propelled penetrators. D.S. Brandt: Author, Goblin(s)s abort their foolhardy attack, spitting profanity.

QuestionablePenmanship, still cursing his misses, pivots with renewed fury. His flat cap shadows all but the whites of his menacing Gaelic stare. He charges Bradley, hurley stick cracking down like a censor’s red pen. Wood meets ceramite pauldron, splintering predictably. Undaunted, QuestionablePenmanship tosses the broken weapon aside and follows with the shinty stick, smacking it across Bradley’s copy of the Lectitio Divinitatus, mounted prominently across his chest plate. It gouges deep; torn pages scatter to the wind. Bradley staggers, face indignant. He vows to spend the next 100 days and nights rewriting an even more elaborately illuminated version of the holy text to place right where his armor is stricken most.

QuestionablePenmanship’s triumph is short-lived; a bleeding, one-armed Jack engulfs QuestionablePenmanship with his flamethrower. The inferno chars his M65 field jacket, permanently cauterizing it to his body. Jack does not stop, torching his victim in an unending stream, peeling QuestionablePenmanship’s skin away like forsaken first drafts.

QuestionablePenmanship’s screams are so high-pitched as to briefly interrupt the battle - he rolls on the gravel, dramatizing his death. Just when it seems over, he takes another deep breath and screams again.

“Damn you all!” he shouts. He’s burned to a blackened skeleton at this point. “Three years and change of probing wards, decoys laced with lowbrow tricks, and still you think us unsubtle!”

A single, manly tear trickles down Gregory Blair’s stoic cheek. Unable to watch this anymore, he salutes the burning, ranting QuestionablePenmanship, and activates his black hole generator. QuestionablePenmanship’s skull implodes to void pressure and his body spaghettifies to nothingness. His screeching rant comes to a merciful end.

“One man keeps tightening the wrong screws,” Jack slurs. He’s drunk from blood loss and possibly means to condemn Gregory for “stealing” his kill.

The ensuing silent awkwardness is interrupted by Graeme McAllister. Failing to read the room, the philosopher-poet erupts from his penitent crouch, glinting letter opener dropping into his palm. With an efficient flick of his wrist, it flies across the battlefield, embedding deep in Keith Long’s mutant thigh. Green-tinted red blood bubbles and froths from the wound and a surprised Keith howls like a wolf again - he rushes Graeme, but the man runs a thumb over a forgotten verse etched into his ornate plate, disappearing not only from view, but also memory.

The fighting resumes in earnest. The goblins waddle in Mark Armstrong’s direction. The nozzle of a fire extinguisher extends from the midsection of the trench coat, blasting foam at the humorist and searing his eyes with chemical burns. While Mark’s dazed and confused, the goblins close the distance and whack him in the head with the heavy red can. Mark stumbles and runs away - his mustache lingers behind in midair. It twitches in surprise, then chases his face like a cartoon bat.

Bradley Ramsey, cat-ears dented, cracked monocle gleaming, shivers with righteous fury. The 2,000-lb Space Marine in Terminator armor strides through the haze, chainfist revving, plasma whining to full charge. His optical implants are hooked into his bionic right eye, painting Ian Patterson’s waxed pectorals with a trembling crosshair. Raising Incinerator, a relic of his Chapter’s armory as old as it is deadly, Bradley unleashes a torrent of azure superheated plasma that melts one of Ian’s five-fingered skate shoes into synthetic slag.

Ian yelps with pain, but flexes his abs in defiance and rolls away.

“Face the Emperor’s Judgment, apostate!” Bradley roars, monocle fogged with rage. The ground quakes as he sprints in pursuit.

Edward.Marlo.Ruiz, peasant linens still smoking, flings his frying pan into Bradley’s path. The cookware smacks edge-on, scarring the paint on the Terminator’s greave with a clang. Bradley doesn’t notice the strike, but his fake cat ears flatten in spite.

Centaur Write Satyr, mistaking Eddie for Victor in the shadows, whips out his PEZ dispenser and fires a poisonous redpill. Eddie’s eardrums hemorrhage - he spins to a stand and stumbles into the light. “BASED!” he shouts against his will, veins bleeding red, white, and blue.

Victor Jimenez smells blood - pseudo-imperialist blood, the sweetest there is. Capitalizing on Centaur’s mistake and Eddie’s momentary weakness, he lunges, motorcycle leathers flapping in the wind. Big nasty teeth flashing, in one wicked pass Victor tears out the hapless Eddie’s throat.

His lifeblood pouring out, Eddie’s wry smile fades, and his vitae returns to normal color as the redpill’s effects fade. A final offering to the bay’s whispering waves: “Never in vain,” he gasps. A storm disperses as the black smoke of life and death billows from him like a cobra snake waiting to strike. He crumples, wakizashi clattering from his limp hand.

Centaur Write Satyr, hooves clopping in tasteless celebration of Eddie’s death, bleats goat-like in triumph, and hoists his panflute disruptor high.

“Nice flute,” Richie whispers, then toots his blowgun. A poisonous needle sprouts from Centaur’s fuzzy flank. Toxins foam from the tiny wound in a waterfall of satirical venom. He circles in search of his attacker, but Richie has already fled into one of the classrooms.

Richie leans through a broken window, top hat askew. Eyes crazed but focused, the tinfoil-armored man pilots his remote quadcopter over the blacktop. Graeme McAllister, posed like a statue in his ornate mail, proves the easiest target. The tiny copter’s propellers shred filigreed scales like the ruthless strikes of an editor’s typewriter. Graeme reels, batting the infernal RC copter away.

Keir Starmer, brow bloodied from the frozen fish, whimpers in proximity to Mark Armstrong, hands outstretched in feeble plea. Mark, foam-blinded and chain-struck, sneers at him with disdain, then vaults into the air, riding his pencil like a broom.

This snub proves too much for poor old Keir, and the lawyer-turned-politician resigns on the spot.

Keith Long hobbles about with his crushed shoulder, cackling madly. Blood trickles from the letter opener embedded in his thigh. He seems unconcerned, lining up a shot and rolling his heavy bowling ball at Richie.

The ball plows through the brick and plaster wall Richie hides behind. But the man dances aside, keeping his top hat free of dust. “Gutter roll!” Richie taunts.

Keith roars his frustration, veins pulsing yellow with radiation poisoning, not noticing a creeping Ian Patterson’s heavy breathing. Ian, contemptibly athletic despite his ruined foot, has run circles around the school. He silently hefts a bike frame high and slams it down two-handed.

Keith crumbles like a dry stack of popsicle sticks. His eyes pop out of his skull, turning all around.

Keith has never seen the back of his head before.

“He likes it,” Keith rasps.

He gurgles a chuckle, then his irradiated eyes go dim. His loincloth flutters in the breeze one last time, settling askew, exposing horrors best left undescribed.

Victor Jimenez, beret shadowed, snaps at Mark Armstrong - fangs grazing cape but missing flesh. He snarls, feral grin mocking the chaos.

Mark Armstrong, flying like a kamikaze witch, homes in on Victor Jimenez, impacting at ludicrous speed. His giant No. 2 pencil penetrates black leather, graphite tip exploding inside Victor’s ribs like a hollowpoint bullet.

“Hold that pose!” Mark asks, and Victor, a really swell guy, freezes the agony on his face for a quick sketch.

Mark finishes quickly and shows it to Victor.

“Nice. Send a copy later?”

“You betcha,” Mark says. The two old men high-five, and Mark flies off into the sky again. Victor resumes rolling on the ground in total agony.

Ian Patterson, leaving shoe-slag prints with every other step, swings his bicycle frame indiscriminately. Jenifer Jorgenson happens to be nearest - she pops off her ring, only to duck and roll, ninja bikini shimmering like a rock and roll stunt. Ian lets the bike frame fly from his grip on the follow-through. This time Jenifer’s too slow - the frame smacks her in the midsection, knocking the snark out of her - for just a moment.

Grinning triumphantly, the insufferable hipster Ian searches for a new target. Sighting the crying, fleeing Keir Starmer, he flexes his pecs with glee, then gives chase. Neck muscles bulge and bunch, then release a mighty headbutt, flattening Keir Starmer like a Goomba. Ian laughs, abs rippling, fake butterfly wings spreading to full, victorious erection.

Jenifer Jorgenson, eyepatch scarred and belly bruised, swipes her vorpal sword at Gregory Blair. The ethereal blade ignores all matter that isn’t flesh - it slips effortlessly through his SWAT chestplate, carving a bloody furrow into his iron heart.

Greg falls to his knees and Jenifer dances away in a flurry of skin and glimmering chainmail. Bowed, but unbroken, the tough professional pushes himself back to his feet. “This isn’t over,” he declares through gritted teeth.

And he’s right, for now comes ROUND THREE - 11 fighters still stand!

Round 3

The blacktop is slick with cooling blood, scorch marks, and chemical foam. An indifferent February sky lords over the chaos below.

Victor Jimenez, ribs throbbing with splintered graphite, shakes off the pain - and all remaining civility - like a wet dog. His beret sits crooked on his brow, shadowing eyes gone feral. He senses movement and leaps - Jack, pale from blood loss and mid cough, is his hapless victim. He snaps at Jack’s neckerchief. Jack’s runic plate flares with blessed flame, deflecting Victor’s unholy presence. Victor recoils mid-air, beaten back by some invisible force, his beret singed and curling. He retreats with a hiss.

Jack’s life force flickers like a candle drowned in wax. He levels his flamethrower nonetheless, napalm hose belching orange-hot fire and black smoke, coating Jenifer Jorgenson from the top of her eyepatch to the base of her chainmail bikini. Hot wind drowns Jenifer’s scream and the scanty links glow cherry-red. But her exposed skin remains unharmed (that wouldn’t be cinematic). She drops and rolls, attempting to smother the flames.

Jack, delirious and getting tunnel vision, pulls the trigger again - but the fuel tanks on his back slosh empty. “Huh,” he wonders. His sword arm lying severed on the blacktop, Jack reaches for his final weapon - that holy thermos of rare and ancient McDonald’s coffee, made by the same machine from that one lawsuit. He recites a prayer and unscrews the lid, then tosses the scalding contents. Jenifer, already on fire, spews a string of sarcasm-laden curses every bit as hot as the caffeinated beverage burning her. Jenifer’s fingers blacken and steam rises in mocking spirals.

Ian Patterson, whistling gleefully, skates in on his plasma-slagged shoe. “Having trouble, are we?” he says conversationally to the struggling, downed Jenifer. “Let me help!”

Ian pulls his hand from behind his back, twirling a tire iron around his wrist. With exaggerated flair, he tosses the iron high, jumps to catch it, then slams down on Jenifer’s beagle eyepatch with all his weight.

“Bro!” Jack’s whine comes gruff - he’s barely standing. “You’re all stealing my kills again.”

Still, Jenifer’s not dead. “They came for me because I question too much, feel too much, and won’t stay in my damn lane - just like our mother.”

Ian frowns and scrambles for his bike frame and chain.

“But did they have to send the whole galaxy?”

Ian wails away on the monologuing Jenifer with all his scented-oil might.

“Napalm, headbutts, tire irons... and scalding hot coffee? Talk about overkill for one sarcastic b████.”

Jack joins in, throwing in a few limp kicks.

“Extinction echoes, sure - but this gang-up? That’s just petty.” Jenifer’s final words spoken, she finally surrenders to death, and the beatings stop.

Clown-Emperor Derek’s livestream chat chimes excessively. Amidst the cheering for senseless violence and cries of “RIGGED!” a single question stands out: “What’s with all the weird monologuing?”

Derek leans over and types, “Writers.” He nods sagely, as if that single word explains everything.

Bradley Ramsey thunders back into the arena, activating his teleport beacon after giving up chasing that heretic, Ian Patterson. Gregory Blair wisely runs for cover, hiding behind a drifting patch of smoke.

Fake cat ears twitching, Bradley raises his Storm Bolter at the first thing that moves - Centaur Write Satyr. The gun chatters and unstoppable .75-caliber rounds shred through lamellar ivy and horse hide. Welters of blood choke the air and Centaur’s taunting prances come to a sudden halt. He slides to his demise, paving the blacktop with a carpet of blood, his broken body nudging into the ceramite toe of Bradley’s armored boot.

Bradley raises his foot and growls with contempt: “Any last words, foul beastman?”

Centaur’s voice rasps: “In the land of the blind... the one-eyed man is king... but here, in this nympho hell - the impotent satyr reigns supreme!”

Bradley drops his heel, and Centaur’s skull explodes. “May your corrupted soul be cleansed in the Emperor’s light.”

Graeme McAllister, filigreed scales brightening and signaling his return to action, stands as if in a dream and says: “As the flame gutters in the husk, so must the ember be returned to ash - lest its dying light eclipse the quiet stars we were meant to chase.”

Portent delivered, he removes a dreamweaver brush from a hip bag and approaches Jack. Jack, disarmed and face white with blood loss, mirrors Graeme’s thousand-yard stare.

Like a Renaissance artist preparing his masterpiece, Graeme dabs his brush on a palette patiently, running up and down Jack’s body with broad but intentional strokes. But instead of painting Jack in colors, each brushstroke paints Jack out of existence, revealing the truth of the void. Graeme leaves Jack’s face for last.

“My glow is built to fade,” Jack’s disembodied mouth says, right before it’s painted into oblivion.

Mark Armstrong, airborne on his cartoon pencil, sketches an explosion mid-flight. In the middle - Gregory Blair. He’s going to colorize it this time - but drops his cyan pencil. He scrambles for light blue but it’s too late - his giant No. 2 pencil smashes into Gregory’s SWAT chestplate. Steel-wrapped Kevlar blunts the pencil along with Mark’s face; man and pencil bounce away.

Gregory doesn’t hesitate. He pulls the trigger on his M4’s underslung grenade launcher.

Mark lands on his back and his eyes roll up to stare at a pinprick shadow on his forehead. “Uh oh,” he says, as the shadow grows and grows like something from Looney Tunes. The round, now the size of an ACME anvil, lands, then detonates in a cartoon denial of physics - Mark’s sketchbooks shred into confetti and his silly-string cape ignites.

A single, scorched page flutters to Gregory’s feet. A panel and a caption are still legible: “Think funny, think visual.”

Gregory says: “Looks like this sketch is post-mortem.”

Richie, a silent shadow with a top hat, whispers past, scattering a bag of marbles in his wake. Gregory Blair, rifle ready, turns at the sound, his boot heel catching a rolling glass bead. Gregory tumbles hard onto the blacktop, his abused body collecting another bruise.

Richie cackles - interrupting his laughter with a sharp intake of breath. He blasts into his blowgun. Gregory, prone and groaning in pain, barely feels the tiny dart pierce his neck. But the vampiric man tastes nauseating poison soon enough. Gregory gurgles, pushing up to his feet and swearing vengeance.

D.S. Brandt: Author, Goblin(s)’s goblin stack braves the fray once more, waddling, trench coat billowing. They’ve saved their deadliest weapon for this crucial stage - Excalibuild, their mighty Lego Sword.

Richie turns a corner and runs face-first into a swooping blade of 2x4-studded bricks. Richie howls. His top hat goes flying. He skids across the ground, tinfoil lamellar shredded into glittering confetti.

“More have fallen!” Derek bleats gleefully, jaw dropping a centimeter further than it should like a YouTuber’s reaction thumbnail. “Round 4 beckons!”

Round 4

The goblins shout victoriously, running over to finish Richie off.

“Help, I’m being oppressed!” cries Richie.

Victor Jimenez hears the plea. “Blood,” he murmurs, running over on all fours.

The goblins cackle, raising Excalibuild. “Any last words, puny human?”

But before either can say anything, Victor’s snarling face intervenes.

“Eeee!” D.S. Brandt: Author, Goblin(s)’s goblins shriek, clutching their lego sword like a purse and swinging it wildly. The sword connects - a chunk snaps off on Victor’s jaw, and several bricks fragment and fly loose.

Victor snaps, biting Excalibuild’s stump, tearing more bricks free with his teeth, before snarling and fleeing the scene, metaphorical tail between his legs.

“Hurrah!” the goblins shout, but their victory proves short-lived.

Bradley Ramsey the Astartes emerges. “I have you now, filthy Greenskins!” His plasma incinerator whines to full charge.

“Long live the neo-pulps!” the head goblin cries, tiny green arms raised defensively. White-hot plasma bathes the trio - only a wisp of scattered ash evinces the minions of D.S. Brandt: Author, Goblin(s) once existed.

Bradley stomps his way over to Richie.

Richie rolls on the ground, holding his injured knee. “Writing has morphed into a compulsion, an outpouring of the soul too brimmed with the liquid of life to be contained any longer, and, as the container spills out-”

Bradley solemnly shakes his head. “This citizen of the Imperium is too far gone - may he know the Emperor’s Mercy.” A bolt-round would be the quickest end, but a baseline human’s life is hardly worth replacement ammo. Bradley revs his chainfist instead, splitting Richie in half mid-rant.

Richie’s top hat watches its master’s demise from the shadows, forlorn.

Victor Jimenez, beret low on his brow, licks the blood from his big nasty teeth as he watches Graeme McAllister put his brush away. Sensing prey, he lunges the only way he knows how - with another bite. His jaw clamps shut on ornate filigree scales, tearing up verses and mussing up Graeme’s armor filigree.

Graeme blinks once, then holds utterly still. Victor snarls and searches, seeking to strike his prey again - but he can’t find Graeme, for he can only sense movement. He wanders in search of new prey. Graeme bleeds quietly.

Meanwhile, Ian Patterson self-reflects and twirls his thin curly mustache. He decides he approves of his actions: ganging up on the unlucky, kill-stealing, and preying upon the weak. In this frame of mind, he happens upon poisoned, seriously wounded Gregory Blair.

Ian notices Greg is in desperate need of medical attention. So Ian points and laughs. Then he whips out his bike chain, lassos it around Greg’s ankle, and ties the other end to his bike frame.

Gregory moans, tugging ineffectually and mumbling: “So, here I am, trying to write; trying to write despite the fight.”

Steely pecs gleaming, Ian grins, sits on the bike frame. Then he starts pedaling. Despite lacking pedals - and wheels - the bike frame zooms forward via the pure power of Ian’s thundering thighs. The bike’s jagged steel stumps spray sparks and carve furrows into the schoolyard’s blacktop.

“Weee!” Ian giggles maniacally, swerving hard. The bike chain goes taut, throwing a helpless Gregory Blair into a brick wall, smashing him to pulp.

Clown-Emperor Derek cackles from his throne. “Chat, the pecs have spoken - will you place your bets our dark horse, Ian Patterson? Or play it safe and stick to the cat-eared exterminator?” He mashes his bulb horn in staccato bursts. “Round 5: four left standing. Let the DREAD continue!”

Round 5

Graeme McAllister, blood trickling between filigree scales, rises once more from a contemplative haze - like a half-remembered stanza. His hooded gaze settles on Bradley Ramsey, the towering Astartes. Graeme exhales softly, thumb tracing the final verse etched into his ornate mail.

“Open up, my friend.” Graeme flicks his wrist. A letter opener - shining with moonlight - flies true, embedding directly in the cat-eared tyrant’s eye. The slightly dull blade penetrates the Angel of Death’s monocle and lodges deep in his brain.

Bradley roars - not in pain, but fury. “An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded!” He whirls, chainfist sawing the air, but the poet has already melted back into invisible stillness.

Ian Patterson, fake butterfly wings fluttering, jogs up like one of those shirtless neighborhood does-it-better-know-it-alls.

“Nice throw, wordsmith. My turn.” His mustache curls in approval of his own cruelty. Unimpressed with Graeme’s psychedelic invisibility, he hefts the bicycle frame high and slams it down two-handed into Graeme’s chest.

Filigreed scales cave inward with a metallic groan; ribs crack like dry parchment. Graeme staggers but stays upright, blood bubbling at his lips.

“Meaning Melts,” Graeme rasps, a faint smile ghosting his face. “Every silver nerve is spent.”

Ian doesn’t pause for poetry, he’s too “with it” to wait for something like that. He spins his tire iron once - casual, almost playful - then brings it crashing across Graeme’s temple. The poet’s ornate scale helm rattles; blood sprays in an arc that paints the blacktop red. Graeme’s knees fold. He drops to all fours, still clutching the dreamweaver brush like a talisman.

Ian flexes, pecs rippling under a sheen of sweat.

Bradley Ramsey blinks, his heavy brow squinting almost like a mouth, spitting his monocle and destroyed eyeball. He pivots toward the new threat and revs his chainfist. “The heretic hipster! What chaos cult enslaves you? Khorne? Tzeentch?”

“None,” Ian scoffs and rolls his eyes. “I’m an atheist, obviously.” Ian ducks under whirring adamantine teeth and swings the bicycle frame, planting a solid blow on the Terminator’s chestpiece. The armor shudders with a hydraulic groan; ceramite buckles; sparks fly. “But if I did, I’d worship Chaos Undivided!”

“The warp taints you, apostate!” Bradley brings his storm bolter to bear. Ian chains Bradley by the pauldron, yanking hard; servos whine in protest and bolter rounds harmlessly stitch earth and sky.

Bradley roars again, spittle flying from his mouth. “You’re a quick one, traitor, but can you outrun plasma?” Bradley fires his incinerator.

Ian’s eyes go wide. He barely rolls out of the way. Azure fire hisses past him, straight at a creeping Victor Jimenez. Victor rolls away too, the blistering sphere of death singeing his motorcycle jacket, but leaving his flesh untouched.

Ian grins, mustache aquiver. “Big armor, big target. Easy pickings!”

Victor Jimenez has degraded. He is more beast than man now. But a shred of his human cunning remains - stick to the shadows, let the titans finish each other off. He watches from the shadows, beret low, big nasty teeth glistening with drying blood. No prey yet, let the alphas swing.

Clown-Emperor Derek’s livestream chat erupts - emojis of fire, flexing biceps, and anime cats wearing berets flood his screens. “Ian’s on a rampage!” “Victor’s just vibing!” “Bradley - carry or bust?”

Derek mashes the bulb horn twice. “Quit with the drama and end it, you louts! The viewers want blood!”

Round 6

The fight has lasted the whole afternoon. The blacktop is slick with blood and strewn with corpses. A full moon rises quietly on the horizon.

Ian Patterson, sweat-slicked and grinning like a man who’s already won, circles Bradley Ramsey like a prize fighter.

The Terminator’s armor is a ruin of dents, scorched ceramite, and leaking hydraulics.

Ian hefts the bicycle frame high overhead, muscles coiling like steel cables. “Time to recycle you, grimdark guy.”

He brings it down in a two-handed smash. The frame crashes into Bradley’s greave with a bone-rattling clang; the leg buckles sideways, servos screaming in protest. Bradley staggers, chainfist hacking uselessly at empty air. Ian doesn’t let up - he spins the tire iron in his off-hand like a gunslinger and drives it straight through the gap where the Terminator’s pauldron used to be. Soft underlayers crumple; ceramite shards fly like shrapnel. Bradley’s roar is choked into a wet gurgle.

The Astartes drops to one knee, still defiant. “The Emperor… Protects.”

Ian plants his scorched foot on the chest plate and yanks the tire iron free in a spray of coolant and blood. “Your Emperor’s a corpse. Hello? Lore? Do you even read?”

With one final flex - pecs bulging obscenely - Ian slams his forehead into Bradley’s ruined face. The cat ears fly free; his skull caves with a sick crunch. Bradley Ramsey topples backward, a felled colossus, steam rising from cracked plates. The blacktop drinks the last of his sanctified unguents.

Clown-Emperor Derek’s bulb horn blares a triumphant blast. The livestream chat explodes, scrolling so fast it’s barely readable:

“PEC LORD WINS???”

“RIP cat ears :(”

“Ian carried by butterfly wings.”

“★　　★ ° ☾ ☆ ¸. ¸ 　★　 :.　 . • ○ ° ★　 .　 *　.　.　　¸ .　　 ° 　¸. * ● ¸ .　...somewhere　　　° ☾ ° 　¸. ● ¸ .　　★　° :.　 . • ° 　 .　 *　:.　.in a parallel universe* ● ¸ 　　　　° ☾ °☆ 　. * ¸.　　　★　★ ° . .　　　　.　☾ °☆ 　. * ● ¸ ..Eddie’s...° ☾　★ °● ¸ .　　　★　° :.　 . • ○ ° ★　 .　 *still alive ☾　★ °● ¸ .　　　★　°”

Ian turns, wiping gore from his mustache, eyes scanning the shadows.

Victor Jimenez steps into the open at last. Beret tilted. Leather jacket scorched. But his big, nasty teeth are whole, and they’re bared in a feral smile.

Ian laughs scornfully. He swings his bike chain in a wide, whistling arc.

Victor ducks low, the links singing over his head.

Ian follows with the tire iron in a ferocious overhead chop.

Victor twists sideways with a mocking grin and the iron plinks into cracked asphalt.

“You… missed!” Victor hisses. His voice is barely human. His limbs elongate, growing claws, and his motorcycle jacket rips open, revealing a chest of fur.

“A w-werewolf?!” Ian stammers.

Victor howls at the full moon, then lunges head-first, misshapen fangs extended. His bite tears into Ian’s only weak point: a genetically aberrant seam where Ian’s iron-hard pecs meet his burly shoulder.

Big nasty teeth sink deep, splitting muscle strands in a crimson spray, embedding in bone with a wicked crunch. Ian wails in pain, staggering, flexing his pecs and clubbing Victor with his fists, but the man-wolf’s grip is ironclad.

Blood pours hot down Ian’s chest; his vision tunnels. He drops to his knees, still swinging weakly.

“There is no salvation here, can’t you feel it?” Ian starts.

“Oh God, not another monologue,” a troll bemoans in Derek’s chat. His message earns him a quick ban.

“This is hell,” Ian continues. “My brothers, we are in hell already.”

Victor releases, steps back. He licks crimson from his lips and circles Ian from a safe distance, animal cunning driving him to wait for Ian to bleed out.

“God has measured us, and found us wanting. There will come no rains!” Ian Patterson slumps forward, fake butterfly wings drooping, mustache uncurling.

The playground falls quiet except for the distant lap of waves in the bay.

Amidst the cooling corpses of a place where children once played, Victor Jimenez stands alone.

“Holy Gaia $h*% balls!” he declares. His canine limbs shrink to normal proportions, the coat of fur recedes, and he’s his old self again.

“I won!” he declares. He spits once, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and without another word, walks off into the February dusk.

Battle Concluded

Clown-Emperor Derek toots his airhorn and announces: “Victor’s bite-first-ask-later style defies the odds!”

Chat goes wild:

CtrlAltDefeat: RIP A.I. Freeman, got poisoned by a tinfoil conspiracy theorist and went to Bureaucracy Heaven
NotARobot117: Jack painted into non-existence? 😯 WTF did I just watch?
HairDontCare: Mark drew his own death. 🏆Absolute legend.
AFKFashion: Keith Long’s loincloth deserved better.
RespawnTherapy: Holy s— does streamer not see the police lights? 😂
SkillIssue: CentaurWriteSatyr’s skull-popping mic drop best death, hands down
TeabagConsultant69: 🤣🤣🤣 QuestionablePenmanship on 🔥screaming for like 45 seconds then black-holed 🤣🤣🤣
GodOfBling:🚨🚨🚨
144pWarlord: TIL Graeme McAllister is sadistic Bob Ross. Poetry is dead.
FeelingsBuffer: Gregory never stood a chance against cheat code cardio 😡
ClutchOrGTFO: Snark queen survives napalm, tire irons, boiling coffee and pecs beatdown… just to monologue about extinction echoes? I want my 💰 back, Jenifer
RageQuitRef: Run Derek, cops coming! 🤣🚨
CrouchPro: My neo-pulp Martyrs 😭 invent Excalbuild, survive plasma, survive werewolf, survive everything. Then Grimdark BBQ’d, just like that.
DigitalVogue: Ian Peccerson 💪 werewolfed right in the pec gap 😢 Tragic
ASMRChairs: Imperium loses Bradley to an atheist hipster 👏👏👏 What now, Empy? 😂
TOXICPOSITIVE: NOTHING IS OVER. EDDIE FOREVER! NOTHING IS OVER, EDDIE FOREVER! NOTHING IS OVER, ED(CapsLock character limit reached!)
StreamSniper: Man down! But 🎩 lives on. RIP in peace, Richie.
HitboxHater: Victor is an absolute menace. Question. how does his beret stay on?
TrolleyTroll: 🚨🤣🚨🤣🚨🤣

Sirens blare, and the night air lights up with flashing red and blue lights.

“Oh God, what have I done?” Derek says. He tears off the clown nose and discards it, then springs into action.

“See ya chat. Remember to like and subscribe!” He shuts down the stream, throws his equipment into the trunk of his SUV, and peels out on screeching tires.

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Data for gamers and nerds (is there a difference between these two?)

Simulation Blow-by-Blow Combat Log

Simulation Individualized Performance

Simulation Miscellaneous Rankings

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Guest Review by Johanna C. Eschwald

I greet you, honourable reader of this week’s DREAD review!

I’m Johanna, writer of a chaotic little publication titled The Tainted Gardens. I’m growing stories, poems and even the occasional essay there, all there to be viewed, judged and plucked—as long as you don’t forget to water them.

Every month I host the Great Binge-Reading of Serialised Fiction, a sort of book club in which we read one series a month and review it. The book club’s doors are always open if that sounds interesting to you!

Recently, I’ve unveiled a special kind of seedling in my Garden: a low-fantasy mystery series A Touch of what’s Hidden. More on that later—for now:

Johanna C. Eschwald’s Review of Ariadne Pautina’s Snow

Too many writers publish too many wonderful stories on Substack. How am I to choose a victim? I knew I wanted to give attention to someone who doesn’t get enough.

And then Ariadne Pautina published her retelling of Snow White and I instantly knew: it’s her story I need to write about!

I’ve read some of Ariadne’s work, but not nearly enough. I’ve found myself enchanted and—at times—positively disturbed. Her prose leans gothic; it’s drenched in darkness, ominous descriptions, subtle horrors of love, and the grotesque beauty of the female experience.

“Snow” is no exception. A gloomier iteration of the well-known fairytale Snow White, it renders Snow a more unusual hero, tainted through heritage.

Its introduction at first reads like a classic fairytale. But Ariadne quickly shows us this story is not for children. More akin to the earlier, complete fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, it draws us into a world where gentle princesses aren’t always visible in mirrors and sometimes resort to drastic measures.

Snow White is definitely not my favourite classic—I despise tales where a woman must be rescued by a man. Men do play an integral part in this adaptation, but ultimately Snow saves herself while inflicting deserved revenge. The seven dwarves (seven brothers, here) and the huntsman are more archetypes than characters and support Snow’s escape from hiding. The evil queen remains a classic antagonist, who in this tale has chosen the wrong princess to ████ with.

I loved this story and wanted more from it. I wanted deeper explanations why the characters did what they did or how certain things came to be. Ariadne has tentative plans to revise and polish this story, so you may see an even better version than I did!

If my review hasn’t convinced you already, I’ll leave with a quote that might finally convince you to read Ariadne’s work:

“Night had fallen, the haunting echo of owls reverberating in the still air while the dark leathery wings of bats rode the current.”

Snow

Promoting Johanna C. Eschwald

A Touch of What’s Hidden

Have you ever wondered about the secrets carried by objects?

And if you could, would you even want to know them?

As Margery Fowler takes her mother to the grave, there’s one thing she could gladly do without: A cryptic letter from her former friend Georgina, who she would have preferred to simply forget. Yet, she quickly finds herself dragged into the curious events surrounding Georgina and her new husband, a man with no apparent past.

Margery’s only chance to uncover the mystery surrounding the couple is to cooperate with her childhood nemesis Anthony Dewitte, who has the peculiar gift to learn the history of every object he touches. Surpassed only by his ability to infuriate Margery with his mere presence.

Before the backdrop of Eisenfurt, a city inspired by 19th century Austria, they have to unveil a dangerous secret with time running against them.

DREAD Reviews Table of Contents (Searchable)

DREAD 48 | DREAD 49 | ⚔️DREAD 50⚔️ | DREAD 51 | DREAD 52

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