Splatterpunk's Not Dead Read online

  Splatterpunk’s Not Dead!

  Edited by Jack Bantry

  Punks is Horror: An Introduction

  by Jeff Burk

  John Skipp, one of the founding members of the original splatterpunk movement, said in a YouTube interview, “people concentrate on the ‘splatter’ but forget the ‘punk.’ ”

  It seems that many associate the horror genre with metal music. I can understand why on a surface level. The subject matter of monsters and gore is often similar between the two genres. But while metal presents a rebellious image, the genre is really about careful craftsmanship. When one looks over the history of the horror genre, it isn’t technical perfection that is most remembered, but unrestrained passion.

  Personally, I’ve always believed that horror was more similar to punk rock. Punk encourages its audience to get out into the world and create their own art. That’s just where many of the best voices in horror have come from. Even though I pursued a path of literature, it was horror legends like Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, and Troma Studios that inspired me to just do it myself.

  It was also the punk scene that gave us zines - small, hand-stapled and photocopied booklets that proved a forum for niche voices that would otherwise never be published. And the horror scene once again took notice. Through the eighties and nineties, handmade zines were a way that many small press authors managed to get an audience. Writers such as Brian Keene, Edward Lee, and Carlton Mellick III all started as hopefuls with Xeroxed zines and are now major voices in the genre.

  Once the internet revolution really took hold and web “publications” became a serious option, the handmade zines just seemed to disappear. It makes sense - while zines did have a relatively low cost, websites were even lower. There was no need for postage, anyone in the world with internet access could see whatever you had to show.

  But there was something missing. Those old zines were a labor of love. There was a personal touch, from the way that each paragraph had to be carefully designed to how the very structure of the pages being assembled was done by hand. You knew holding the zine, that whoever made it did it with passion.

  Thank god for Jack Bantry remembering that and giving us the Splatterpunk Zine. For four years and seven issues, Bantry has given the fans of hardcore horror a publication that radiated love and joy for the genre. And the genre was waiting for someone like him to come along. We were all ready for it, whether we knew it or not. Over the course of just a few issues, Bantry has been able to give us a publication that repeatedly delivered on representing the biggest names in horror fiction and the most promising newcomers.

  Now at this point you’re probably like, “that’s all well and fucking good but this ain’t no hand stapled zine, this is a fucking book!”

  I congratulate you on being so observant.

  The Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, and Crass started off just as wild nobodies and released seven-inches through basically pocket change but they grew into Alternative Tentacles Records, Dischord Records, and Crass Records. Sometimes it turns out you’re really fucking good at your passion.

  That’s where we now find ourselves with Splatterpunk. What started as just a small zine, has built itself a loyal fan base and is consistently a must read publication for fans of fucked-up horror.

  Frequently, a step up in professionalism goes hand-in-hand with a loss of edge. I don’t worry about that here. I don’t believe Bantry is going to forget the “splatter” or the “punk.”

  Another Bunch of Flowers by the Road

  Nathan Robinson

  It had to be a Monday. Monday morning rush hour, it would fuck up the rest of the week that way.

  The carnage, the terror and everything else. This was his requiem, and they’d all join in his song whether they liked it or not.

  He flicked the switch, and with a lightning stuttering of fluorescents, the machine was revealed to his eyes. He’d completed it last Thursday, but gave himself the weekend off to enjoy a few final things; a steak, a movie, a walk on the beach, simple things that used to delight him. He even sat on a bench outside a school on Friday afternoon, taking in what joy he could from the squealing laughter of the children as they enjoyed their last play.

  It had to be a Monday, so he wasn’t losing anything in spending a bit of time away from the project.

  But he’d done it with time to spare.

  In the realm of possibilities, he never thought this would come to be, thinking he would’ve been hampered by time or money or just plain old giving up.

  No.

  He’d seen it through.

  He’d even sprayed it entirely black to complete its look of mechanical oblivion.

  It had come to him in a dream of fire and death and destruction. He awoke with the taste of petrol stinging his lips, and he hurriedly found a scrap of paper and sketched out a design, trying his best to remember the details of his dream.

  He’d seen where the bodies went in.

  Now it was a premonition made real. The metal beast stood before him, a gleaming testament to his efforts. Deep down he knew that this wasn’t some psychotic delusion born from grief, but a genuine need for revenge against society itself and everything it stood for. He wasn’t a terrorist by any stretch and he’d been quite normal and boring up until this point. He’d never been in a fight, never sought to harm anyone else and during his twenties, even toyed with the idea of becoming a vegan. This wasn’t a slight against anyone in particular but a strike out against humanity in general. This wasn’t for religious reasons, in order to appease some sneering deity. He was there to prove a point, nothing more. He didn’t care who died. He’d lost enough already. He was owed this. He couldn’t see any way around this grief. This was his only gateway out. A final fuck you to the cruel world. A middle finger turned back before he blazed on into the sunset.

  Life had been good, he’d been so damned happy. But then, a life shattered and plunged into a deep well of grief. He’d given up on the concept of having a name or identity, abandoning the notion when his family had been presented to him as shredded and carbonised corpses, becoming another bunch of flowers by the road. The only time he saw his name and it struck some sort of resonance was on letters and delivery notes. He wasn’t a person anymore, merely a vessel of sadness carrying on memories of a family gone to dust and smoke and painful memories.

  The insurance payout did nothing to counteract the despair, no matter how many zeros they stuck on the end. He felt like giving it all away and killing himself as he had nothing left to give. Starting another family was incomprehensible, as the terror was evident that it could happen all over again. Lightning does strike twice. Sometimes it strikes the same place on the same day, as he’d learnt. How could he marry again, knowing that everything beautiful either fades to dust or is smashed without warning? How could he even contemplate having children ever again when he’d experienced (thrice-fold) the unbearable and shattering event of losing everything he held dear?

  This was more than revenge. This was proof that life is unfair and unjust and that we all live in a godless universe where the only guarantee was death (it was now fashionable for some folk to avoid tax, so that was struck off as one of life’s certainties.) He was perpetuating in pain, passing it for others to taste, as if doing so would dilute his own.

  He moved over to the roller door and unclipped the chain, pulling it down with a generous tug, the shutter furling up, revealing his creation to the brilliant blue skies beyond. It was a beautiful day so far.

  He’d sold his home not long after the dream and sought out the rented workshop afterwards. He cut off ties with what distant family he had left and moved into one of the offices, spending his mostly sleepless nights curled up ona single mattress.<
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  With the insurance pay out and the money from the house sale (the mortgage was only a few years from being completely paid off, they’d come close to winning the rat race), he could live quite comfortably without having to work. He had cash and he had time. He put both to good use.

  Climbing up into the cab, he shivered. Anticipation? Fear? No, something new, more than excitement. Joy of a dream realised perhaps? This was it. For the first time in a long time, he was genuinely happy.

  He stocked up with everything he needed the previous week. Water, petrol, propane, improvised explosives.

  Before the accident, he’d been an engineer, so his particular set of skills had come in useful in realising his dream. He knew how to weld and suppliers of whatever equipment he needed could be found quite easily on the internet. His dream hadn’t been too much trouble.

  Inside the cab, he removed a picture of his wife and children from the pocket of his overalls, placing it in a joining gap on the control panel. Drenched in eternal sunlight, they smiled back at him.

  From forever.

  He pulled the door shut, bolting it tight and padlocking it to prevent it from opening. He hadn’t included a handle on the outside. It wasn’t designed to be opened from out there. He didn’t want anyone getting in. That was the point. He didn’t need a weapon to protect himself. He was the weapon.

  I am the weapon. I offer no quarter today.

  He sighed, and then drew a deep breath in order to compose his trembling.

  You’ve come too far to go back. This is it.

  He flicked a switch and four flat screens flickered to life. He pressed START ENGINE, and the beast snarled, then grumbled to life.

  Starting with a chassis from a JCB and working up from that, he reinforced the underneath and welded sheets of steel to the sides, essentially turning the cab into a metal tomb, an amateur exoskeleton designed to carry the depressed lump of meat that he’d become. He installed CCTV forward, side and behind, giving him a view of what was outside without the use of windows. He even went to the extreme of installing his own ventilation system with backup oxygen tanks. Just in case.

  It was time, he was ready. Taking the wheel, he dipped the clutch and slipped it into gear, pulling forward out of the workshop, for the first and final time. This was the test. He wasn’t turning back. He once read that humans should take two things from war. One was to forgive; the other was to learn where they went wrong.

  None of these applied to him.

  There didn’t seem any need to close the door behind him.

  He’d picked that specific workshop for its proximity to the off ramp for his soon to be favourite road. It was less than a two minute drive. Cars stopped and screeched as he headed towards the exit, drivers shaking fists and offering up particular fingers in response to seeing the strange machine barrel past them on this otherwise calm, blue-skied Monday morning.

  He ignored them, and turned the exit into an entrance, descending down into the oncoming traffic.

  He pulled a lever and the modified bucket lowered to within a few inches of the tarmac. He’d constructed a framework around the bucket, and then bolted thin sheets of steel on top to create a thirty-degree slope that slightly leant off to the left. He thumbed a button, and the “Road Saw,” a five-foot wide blade began to whir. Cannibalised from another machine designed for slicing large swathes of concrete, he inverted the mechanism and built it in so it sat emerging centrally from a gap in the slope like a single, revolving snaggle tooth.

  This was the primary weapon. But he had others.

  A Fiat Punto leaving the main road and heading up the off ramp saw his approach and swerved onto the hard shoulder.

  He altered his course, and sensing imminent danger, the driver of the Fiat sped up to try to get past him. They made it so far but risked crashing into the barrier.

  The front tyre of the Fiat caught the front slope and immediately accelerated then flipped off the edge and then over the metal barrier, wheels revving as it tumbled down the slope.

  Inside the cab, he laughed as a burst of adrenalin surged through him. There’d be others.

  A second vehicle travelled up the slope, immediately braking at the sight of the flipped Fiat. It was a Mercedes Sprinter van. It turned hard, then started reversing to turn back the way they’d come.

  He pushed on and charged the van before it had managed a one eighty. The driver threw his hands up as the bottom of the slope hit the wheel and tipped the laden van towards the saw.

  He heard a crunch of metal, the shatter of glass and a human scream parted over the shriek of the blade turning through screaming metal and silent bone. He pushed on, weaving to and fro to dislodge the van as momentum carried it up the slope and off the side, the driver’s door parted from the hinges, blood dripping from the torn interior. More vehicles greeted him, brakes smoking and screaming as bumpers kissed and split plastic in a tumble trip of bangs and shrieking bends.

  Some had already tried to turn, but it was too late. He was on them. He didn’t even get the make of the first car as it travelled directly up the slope and onto the spinning blade. Sparks flew as the blade ate through the front grill, into the bottom of the engine with a terrifying roar. The vehicle shook as the blade carried on through the passenger side, the next car pushing it off the slope as it met a similar fate. Petrol splashed up with blood as he tore the car in two.

  He did the same for the next three, the hungry blade mindlessly devouring into the smorgasbord of protesting metal and reluctant flesh in a flurry of sparks and screams. His grin widened as he felt a rush of glee. This was fun. This was how it was supposed to be, blood as therapy.

  Joining the main carriageway, cars immediately began swerving, most headed for the safety of the shoulder and the verge beyond. Others stopped dead, tyres shrieking in staggered unison as they pulled up diagonal to the white lines. Bumpers met bumpers, as the cars formed a coloured concertina of mayhem.

  Sticking to the central lane, he ploughed the machine into them with vehement joy, delighting at each twist of metal. Every crunch was music, every scream joining the choir of avenging angels. To some it would seem this was madness, to him, it was healing.

  He carried on; a hundred metres, a mile, another, leaving a trail of upturned devastation in his wake. Fires had started sending snakes of black smoke pleading into the sky, lost limbs twitched free of their bodies like electrified doll parts. A pair of legs, complete with Nikes and odd socks kicked out from the knees at the concrete central reservation.

  This was all behind him now.

  Fire.

  Blood.

  His family.

  Ahead, blue flashing lights formed a dazzling line beneath the next bridge. He doubted they were here to talk him down or offer him sympathy. He was beyond that. Grief had taken him too far.

  He’d expected this and decreased his speed even though he was clear of traffic from the roadblock ahead. He needed a moment to consider.

  On the other side, traffic still flowed. Some zoomed, others rubbernecked. He stopped, letting the diesel engine idly grumble like a dragon catching its breath.

  Placing his hand on a different set of controls, he began working a so far unused part of machinery.

  From behind the cab, an arm drew up, flexing out with the grace of a mantis leg. The massive pneumatic breaker on the end reached out and pressed against the concrete barrier. With a thumbed switch, it began to pulse and punch, chewing into the low wall with spits of dust and shrapnel. Within thirty seconds, the concrete had split, the barrier pushed back. The blue lights ahead began to rush towards him, but it was too late, the barrier had been breached. Steering the arm forward, he punched the two pieces through to the other side then reversed through the gap.

  Horns blared and tyres squealed as the metal beast emerged into the fast lane with all the grace of a blind dinosaur. With a twist of the wheel, he turned the contraption into traffic and began a fresh chapter of chaos as a prospective rubbernecker sen
t his Mondeo up the ramp, into the saw and exploding over the top in a fury of sparks and spitting fuel. In the next moment, the spray of fuel caught an ember of burning metal, a fiery cushion blooming as the car crash landed. A Subaru jumped the ramp, missing the saw and pirouetting over the side, landing on its roof and skidding toward the awaiting flames. A Land Rover was next, the bull bars caught on the blade and flipped over itself, sending it cartwheeling over the top in a flip of jarring death that would snap spines and necks.

  The carnage continued, metal kissing metal in grinding smacks, glass bursting and exploding into plagues of false diamonds. The screams fought to be noticed over the trail of hissing fuels tanks igniting and making funeral pyre bonfires of the eviscerated car wrecks. Blooming mushroom clouds followed, as if he fertilised the ground, giving rise to their devastating fruition.

  Inside the cab, he was laughing, his guffaws echoing bluntly off his metal surroundings. With each vehicle bouncing up the ramp, he felt a rush of cool blood run through him, chilling and exciting him. The following crashes he left behind added further to the delightful chaos.

  This was his show, his delightful revenge, and not an ounce of guilt weighed against his crushed soul. Car crash catharsis.

  The cars ahead began to slow, pulling over on to the hard shoulder in an effort to clear out of his path, bunching up and locking bumpers. One plucky motorist managed a U-turn and headed the wrong way down the hard shoulder before crashing headlong into a coach, embedding in four seats deep.

  He ploughed into the bunched traffic with glee, cars folding over the edge of the ramp and flipping onto their roofs. Every third vehicle or so, he’d hit dead on, aiming for the fuel tank, spilling explosive juices. The sparks took care of the rest as he left the flames behind.

  Ahead, dark figures were crouched above on a bridge. He caught them on his screen and assumed them to be onlookers.

  A loud ping against the metal body told him otherwise.

  A second ping and the screen to his front camera went black.