The Dread Machine: Issue 1.4

By Alin Walker

IN THIS ISSUE OF THE DREAD MACHINE...

Start a gratitude journal, amass some followers, get the best spot on the ledge, and learn where the babies come from. 

Step aside for Betobeto-san, sell your appendages, fall in love with a ghost, rob a bank, and escape quarantine for a smoke session with your friends.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: The Dread Machine
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780990910060

Book preview

The Dread Machine

Issue 1.4

Alin Walker, Monica Louzon

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The Dread Machine

Copyright © 2021 by The Dread Machine

All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Authors retain the rights to their contributions.

ISSN APPL100002727

ISBN 978-0-9909100-5-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-0-9909100-6-0 (Epub)

Characters and events in this magazine are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Edited by Alin Walker & Monica Louzon

Cover by Katerina Belikova

Published by The Dread Machine

https://www.thedreadmachine.com

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Introduction

Welcome to the fourth installment of The Dread Machine. This quarter's issue features original fiction by Ai Jiang, J.L. Akagi, Josh Rountree, and many more. We snagged an unforgettable reprint from Christina Ladd and are presenting our first triple-feature with three stories by Mark Towse. You'll also find a poetic dive into cyberhell, a king’s grotesque suit, and more beautiful, dark stanzas designed to paint pictures that will haunt your dreams.

Our quarterly stats are now available! You can see them on our website, on the Inner Workings page.

If you haven’t heard, we switched things up a bit on our first anniversary. We want our stories to be read, shared, and loved by the whole world, so we’re converting to a nonprofit organization, and starting in January, stories will be made publicly available the quarter after they’re published. Only active subscribers—our loyal Cultists—will get to read stories when they’re released each week. Subscribers also receive issues in epub format, plus all downloads we develop during their subscription period, including our games, interactive narratives, and Katerina Belikova’s gorgeous cover art as downloadable desktop and phone backgrounds! (Individual Access Packs will remain available, but will only include the epub and cover art.)

Alin is gradually expanding our merch line, but nobody is policing her, so we now have a coffee mug designed exclusively for our Kazoo Crew. (Despite only being available through a secret link, the item quickly became our top-seller.) Cultists enjoy 10% off all purchases, so if you really need a neon Dread Hamster glaring at you from its ceramic prison while you work—or know someone who does—we’ve got you covered.

In other news, we created a Spotify playlist for weirdos who get it. The playlist is routinely updated as songs are suggested in our Discord server. (If you aren’t part of our Discord community, you should be. Our first anthology, Mixtape: 1986, is formatted and the files have been sent to our printing company. We hope to have the proofs in-hand and pictures posted to our Anthology Preview page by mid-February! If you’re craving some creepy 80’s action in the meantime, check out our printable solo journaling RPG, Wretched & Alone in 1986. Fix your time machine, record your experiences, and try not to die. (Be sure to load up the Mixtape playlist before you start your session!)

We have a number of fun, crazy things in the works for 2022 that we aren’t quite ready to announce yet, but you can expect to hear about them soon! Thank you so much for your support!

Contents

Betobeto Teketeke

by J.L. Akagi

Falling Apart

by Justen Russell

Nucleus Accumbens

by Maura Yzmore

Like An Itch You Scratch

by Daria Lavelle

Daily Gratitudes

by Patrick Hurley

Followers

by Martín Merino

Mona Luna

by Christina Ladd

Blood Runs Cold

by Josh Rountree

The Ledge

by Michael Meyerhofer

Digital Ghouls

by Justin Permenter

Departed

by Belicia Rhea

Just Smile

by Dawn Vogel

House—Unpainted

by Ai Jiang

But You Mustn’t Look Back

by Rhonda Parrish and Beth Cato

Just Us

by Stephen S. Power

King’s Suit

by Colleen Anderson

The Casket House

by Nick Chianese

Triple-Feature: Mark Towse

The Neighbours From Hell

by Mark Towse

A Holiday Romance

by Mark Towse

The Bedroom Window

by Mark Towse

Where the Babies Come From

by Sam Rebelein

With Love, Aunt Mercedes

by Crystal Sidell

Thank You

Betobeto Teketeke

by J.L. Akagi

I’m going to tell you a story, but on one condition: it must be read out loud.

If you read it out loud, you must also promise to read it quietly. You might whisper it, a secret between friends, or you might even groan it like a confession. Sit very still with your hands folded and your feet planted on the floor. I’ll tell you when you should make noise. I’ll tell you what to do with your body.

Are we in agreement? You may quietly dip your head, or perhaps hum in the back of your throat.

The story goes like this: for as long as I can remember, I’ve been followed. Not by a person or even a creature, but something disembodied. A follower I can only trace through the sound of footsteps. Sometimes in coordination with my own, sometimes syncopated, but always audible. Always a few paces behind me.

Each time I stop, it stops. Each time I turn my head, there is no one there. But I know I’m being followed.

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To make the sound of the follower, you’ll need to sit in a hard-backed chair. Lean forward and bend your arms behind the small of your back. You may have to cross them at the wrist to splay your palms away from your body. Tap your fingertips lightly against what is behind you. Tip tap. Tip tap. Like that.

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My superstitious cousin from Osaka emails me to warn about a ghost that follows people. He is called Betobeto-san. He is a disembodied yokai who can only be identified by the clacking sound—the betobeto—of his wooden sandals. The longer he walks behind you, the closer the sound gets. Betobeto. Betobeto. Tip tap. Like that.

He sounds ominous, but Mr. Betobeto is not malevolent. If you hear him, you should simply step to the side and say, After you, Mr. Betobeto, and you should hear his sandals clap on.

This is how I know my follower isn’t Betobeto-san. It never walks past me.

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At eighteen, I buy my first car and fall deeply in love with the freedom it grants me. I drive my car up and down winding country roads. I leave my hair down and let it tangle in the wind slapping through the open window. Sometimes, I’m momentarily blinded by my hair, but I don’t slow down because the blind-deafness unleashes a recklessness in my chest that I will only feel here and now while I’m young. 

That endless feeling lasts only for a summer. 

One night I drive a friend home from the movies and, before she even buckles her seatbelt, she checks the backseat. Though I already have a sense of her paranoia, I ask her what she’s doing, and she cites a local news report on how some men break into young women’s unlocked cars to wait in the backseat so they can stalk women back to their homes.

She isn’t the only one with this fear. All my driving friends have their own car-related tics. One purposefully takes wrong turns or pauses at stoplights to see if she’s being trailed. Another won’t stop on abandoned roads when pulled over by the police; anyone can buy a multi-colored dome light. Another friend never gets too close to her parked car, choosing instead to all but leap onto the runner boards from as far away as she can manage. The reason, she says, is because men hide under parked cars with pruning shears. 

What do they do with the pruning shears?

They cut women’s Achilles tendons and drag them under.

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To recreate the sound of severing an Achilles tendon, there’s no need for pruning shears or scissors. Just clack your sharp, sharp teeth together. The blunt bicuspids and snapping incisors. Yes, just like that. 

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On my way home from school, I pick up produce for my mother at the grocery store. She taught me how to tell when a melon is ripe by tapping on it. How to hear the hollow sound of too much water. When thumped, a ripe melon sounds solid. I hold the smooth rind to my ear and knock politely. A may I come in? kind of knock. The same knock I use on my father’s office door.

I sense someone behind me, trying to select a melon of their own. I shift to the side and the follower shifts with me. No one appears at my shoulder.

The nape of my neck prickles. I turn, dread like a cool injection spreading out under my skin.

But it’s just the produce stocker, a skinny teen in an apron heaping yellow onions into the bin behind me. 

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Since you’re reading this out loud, you should clarify that I mean a produce s-t-o-c-k-e-r and not a produce s-t-a-l-k-e-r. That’s a joke. You should laugh.

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Before I go to college, I take a summer class in Tokyo. During the eleven-hour plane ride, I am awash in the ambient roar of the engines. Then I step foot on the tarmac and so does the follower. I’m not surprised it came all this way. Why wouldn’t it?

Tokyo is different: bright pastel lights and constant noise and narrow alleyways where no one can see a woman disappear. 

I take the train and new survival instincts replace my rural ones. For instance: I used to pay attention to everyone who wanted it. Now I learn that sometimes, it’s best to flatly ignore the person shouting right in your face. It’s a surprise delight: ignoring people.

My roommate learns a different lesson: to pay attention constantly. One night she comes home in a bluster, flushed and pouring sweat. She tells me that two men followed her to the station and got into the same car as her. They were speaking in Japanese and thought she couldn’t understand them (she’s half-Dominican, half-Chinese—she reads as a tourist who wouldn’t speak any Japanese), but her ears pricked when she heard them mention the Black girl. She told me that they knew what stop she was going to get off on and planned to grab her.

Terror made her smart. She got off on the next stop and waited for them to exit the car, then—just before the doors closed—she hopped back on. She took the train all the way to the end of the line and back, but got off the stop before ours for fear of the men waiting for her on the platform. From there, she took off in a dead run. Seven blocks. She ran seven blocks back to our apartment in the thick humidity of a Tokyo summer. She’d tried to call me, but my phone was on silent. 

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Have you ever heard of chikan? It is the word for a man who gropes a woman on a train, or another public place. Young school girls are a particular target. Female students on their commute to school will often carry their uniforms so as not to draw attention to themselves.

So much pornography is dedicated to the fantasy. I’m sure if you Google train grope the porn will come up before any news articles on the crime epidemic.

Do you have a word for chikan in your language?

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My roommate tells me about the train incident in our bedroom, while we sit shoulder to shoulder on her twin bed. Afterwards, I am quiet. I should know what to say, but I don’t.

I make tea. I’ve been learning how to brew it the Japanese way, with matcha rather than teabags. I am careful with the amount—too much powder and the tea becomes gritty, like drinking silt—and the temperature of the boil. I whisk the matcha into the warm water the way I was taught to scramble eggs, until the surface is a delicate froth. I hope she likes it; my roommate is from Texas where tea should be liquid honey. 

When I bring the tea to her, my follower’s steps are a hushed shuffle. I sit and the follower sits lightly behind me, barely a third weight on the mattress. I offer her the cup.

I should know what to say, but I don’t.

I sip my tea. She doesn’t sip hers. But she brings it up towards her face, tilts her nose into the steam, and lowers the cup again.

That’s nice, she says, but she’s frowning. You know, I could smell them. Even though they weren’t close enough to smell. But, you know, I saw them, and I know what guys that look like that smell like.

I make a noise to indicate that I want to hear more.

Yeah, like, her nose wrinkles. She sets the tea down into her lap, though it must scald her thighs. "Body odor, I guess? But not the ‘sweat through my deodorant’ kind of B.O., the ‘I don’t wear deodorant because I don’t care if you smell me’ kind. You know, the