Whispers From The Abyss Read Free Page B

changed. There was no time for banter. "Listen."
    The detective leaned forward and raised an eyebrow. "I'm all ears, boss. Please. Tell me a story."
    Eyes closed, pain cycling through his every cell in strengthening waves, Sikowitz spoke. "W-When I found Mark, he was already dead." The swelling in his stomach moved through his intestines, inflating them like party balloons. "B-But ... he was unbroken. I touched his throat to check for a pulse and felt s-something move. I thought he had swallowed, but there was no heartbeat. H-He was cold. Ice. And then ... things--organs, I thought--started b-bubbling out and popping a-and I tried to push them back in . I panicked. But they weren't organs, th-they lashed out at me, th-they grabbed at me, th-they--" Sikowitz screamed with his entire soul. "Oh God, my stomach," he shouted, wrenching the arm handcuffed to the table, yanking, yanking, yanking until the skin broke and blood flowed and several bones in his hand snapped and his screams redoubled as he flopped the tethered hand up and down, up and down until ...
    Sikowitz dropped, his head slamming against the table.
    Officers rushed into the room.
    Several men touched the body before they noticed Sikowitz, though losing body heat, was shifting.
    The detective watched, dumbfounded, as tendrils writhed beneath the flesh of the dead man's neck, flicking and stretching toward the opening of his ear.
    A creeping terror leaked into his mind.
    Not back together, the detective thought as his stomach emitted a subtle gurgle. Back in.

NATION OF DISEASE:
The Rise & Fall of a Canadian Legend
By Jonathan Sharp
     
     
     
    Published in the May, 2012 edition of Noise Line  Magazine.
    Austin Police have now confirmed that Nation Of  Disease vocalist, Krankheit (real name Darren Cross), has been charged with the brutal, on-stage, murder of band member Stahl (real name Stuart Smith) at this year’s South By Southwest Music Festival.
    Canadian duo, Nation Of Disease have been steadily on the rise since the release of their debut album “Darkly Dreaming” on Out Of Time Records , a small European record label. At their inception the band were a three piece: Krankheit - vocals, Stahl - keys and programming and female vocalist Lorelei. Lorelei (real name Linda Lawson) who left the band after this first release, citing the age old “musical differences” as a reason. Following the departure of Lawson, the band began to tour heavily in the US, presenting a gradually darker and more intense sound and their live shows became increasingly ambitious mixed media events. A quick trawl of the many fan shot videos on Viewtube show a stark difference in style of the material from their early electro-pop sound, to the later dark, industrial sound they developed. The bands second album, “X-Instinkt,” was released by well established US Indie electro label Broken Circuit . With widespread distribution in North America and the increasing buzz surrounding the band, it was only a matter of time before the band began attracting much larger interest and sales.
    In a recent interview, Lorelei, who these days prefers to be known as Linda, puts the bands development into perspective:
    “When we started out, we were really just doing kind of gothy electro pop, sort of Depeche Mode with male and female vocals. I’d known Darren since school, we’d both been in the choir and we’d wanted to do a band for ages. Then Darren found Stuart hanging out in a record store. Stuart is one of those super talented geeks...he really knew his way around computers, synthesizers, all that stuff. We recorded all of the stuff on our first album in Stu’s apartment. He made it sound so good. We got the album out in Germany first, but it got us such a boost, to know people actually liked what we were doing. I guess copies of the album must have made it back into the US cause we started to get offers for gigs.”
    Additionally she gives a sense of where things began to