Cartoons in the Suicide Forest Read online

  Copyright © 2016 by Leza Cantoral

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Bizarro Pulp Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  Bizarro Pulp Press, a JournalStone imprint

  www.BizarroPulpPress.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-945373-45-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  JournalStone rev. date: December 15, 2016

  Cover Art: Matthew Revert

  Interior Formatting: Lori Michelle

  www.theauthorsalley.com

  PRAISE FOR LEZA CANTORAL

  “Lyrical and perverse, like a prostitute on acid in a poetry slam, this collection of the dark, erotic, and bizarre flirts with the heroin fever dreams of a William Burroughs and the horrific surrealism of Charlee Jacobs.”

  —Wrath James White, The Resurrectionist and The Book Of A Thousand Sins

  “Playful yet accusatory, brutal but sardonic: Leza Cantoral’s short fiction will knock you for a loop. And then may administrator a few more kicks for good measure. Enthusiastically recommended.”

  —Adam Cesare, The Con Season and Tribesmen

  “Leza Cantoral’s writing is the product of a warped and dirty mind. You’re in for an experience that is equal parts disturbing, surprising, and sexy.”

  —Juliet Escoria, Black Cloud and Witch Hunt

  “Well-crafted, funny, engaging and horrific.”

  —Laura Lee Bahr, Haunt and Longform Religious Porn

  “Leza Cantoral writes the body hallucinogenic by injecting a dose of gorgeous melancholy into its heart song. Her stories are sexual lyrics, provocative love poems, to the dark side of humanity and everything it does when it thinks no one is looking,”

  —Stephanie M. Wytovich, Bram Stoker-nominated author of Hysteria: A Collection of Madness and Brothel.

  “A bacchanal of language and imagery; Cantoral delivers the subconscious with voluptuous strokes throughout Cartoons in the Suicide Forest.”

  —Jennifer Robin, Death Confetti

  “In Cartoons in the Suicide Forest, Leza Cantoral masterfully brings readers into bright, bizarre worlds where anything and everything is possible. In the Suicide Forest, trees “glitter and drip manic panic green in the moonlight.” In Russia, two lesbians get married in a winter wonderland, until a purple smoke bomb goes off, warning them that they are wanted by the government. When you least expect it, a star is born—a porn star who finds her power, destroying men with every candy-coated kiss. In “Siberian Honeymoon”, each world that Cantoral shapes is rich in color and texture, and all characters who navigate these worlds have one thing in common: They must conquer something colossal, something wild. And no matter what happens, one thing is for sure: There will be sex, and there will be the unexpected.”

  —Ashely Inguantana, The Woman Alone And Bomb

  “Sensual, darkly adult fairytales bristling with erotic, dreamlike surprises.”

  —Kris Saknussemm, Private Midnight and The Humble Assesment

  “These stories are killer!”

  —John Edward Lawson, Raw Dog Screaming Press

  “Leza Cantoral’s fairy tales are as charming as they are dark and disturbing. They veer off traditional paths towards the uncanny and definitely scary. They could have been imagined by a psychopathic Walt Disney on acid. And that’s a compliment.”

  —Seb Doubinsky, White City

  “Leza’s words burn purple on the page with a fierce, unfettered imagination—she’s painted a strange and vivid world where terrible things happen in beautiful ways. Cartoons in the Suicide Forest, like Planet Mermaid before it, seduces you into scenarios that seems familiar at first but turn out to be unlike anything you’ve read before.”

  —Andrew Goldfarb, The Slow Poisoner

  “Bubbly with a jagged edge. That’s how I would describe Leza Cantoral’s writing. She reappropriates the fairy tale for adults with the imperfections, dangers and pitfalls that come with the territory. Sit back, relax, enjoy and more important: don’t hurt yourself!”

  —Benoit Lelievre, Dead End Follies

  FOR MY

  <3

  CHRISTOPH PAUL

  PUBLICATIONS

  ‘Siberian Honeymoon’ published in Girls Rock Horror Harder. Editor: Maddie Holiday Von Stark. Publisher: Booktrope.

  ‘The Garden at the Green Lotus’ published in Horror Hooligans: Girls Rock Horror Harder. Editor Maddie Holiday Von Stark. Publisher: Booktrope.

  ‘Eva of Oz’ published in Baum Ass Stories: Twistered Tales of Oz. Editor: Zeb Carter. Publisher: Riot Forge.

  ‘Star Power’ and ‘Dope’ published on Bizarrocentral.com for Flash Fiction Friday. Curator: G. Arthur Brown.

  ‘Fist Pump’ published under the title ‘Fist Pimp’ in Plots With Guns @plotswithguns.com Editor: Sean O’Kane.

  ‘Planet Mermaid’ published by Dynatox Ministries, 2015.

  ‘Cosmic Bruja’ published on Ladyblog @ladyboxbooks.com. Curated by Rios de la Luz

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CARTOONS IN THE SUICIDE FOREST

  SIBERIAN HONEYMOON

  BEAST

  GREEN LOTUS

  EVA OF OZ

  DOPE

  COSMIC BRUJA

  FIST PUMP

  SUICIDE PIGS

  LAST DANCE WITH HEROIN

  STAR POWER

  PLANET MERMAID

  CARTOONS IN THE SUICIDE FOREST

  Act I

  Colors

  Their pink eyes glow in the dark. The trees hang and blow in the breeze. The scent of rotting things rises up from the ancient roots and gnarled crags. The fog is thick as incense as it swirls through the trees that glitter and drip manic panic green in the moonlight. The forest floor is thick with fungus and decay. Cracked rotting trees coated in multicolored moss and mushrooms jut out like broken limbs from the lush and leafy carpet of weeds and ivy. The trees drip with glitter and the colors. The colors. The bark drips like melting wax.

  They are pale and hungry and their big googly eyes are set on me like pink Tasers. They come closer slowly, almost shyly as if this was not the way they lived, by feeding off sadness, by driving girls like me to despair till death seems like the only way out of the nightmare. These vulture girls. These Sad Girls. I see them for the monsters they really are. They are empty. This is all they have. Pain and heartbreak are their holy elixirs.

  I see it now but it is too late.

  Bleed it out bleed it out—a sunset shattered on my skin.

  Sun

  rise

  sun

  set,

  on the dark side of my brain.

  I am sinking down into a rainbow pool.

  I wipe my eyes and I see the rainbow smear on my graying hands.

  I’m a bleeding rainbow. Shattered. Cracked all the way through to the messy pond I used to call a heart.

  My colors are bleeding out like a broken rainbow. My heart is an exploding Jackson Pollock painting. My brain is a smear of confused muddy blues and greens swamping up my memories.

  My head swims in darkness as
the colors explode. I cough and convulse. There is a spinning in my chest like a fiery pinwheel, faster and faster at warp speed. The black wave comes, crashing down like icewater, like oil flooding my lungs. I can’t stop crying. Each deep sob brings out a new shade.

  Red tears, like a stone saint in a miracle sign. The red of desire, of pain at its purest and rawest. Meat red. My meat cut up with surgical instruments. My heart, my tongue, uterus chopped sushi. Fuck me harder red. Hit me red. I hate you red. Die for me red. I cut myself red. I bleed to feel alive red. I carved WHORE into my arm red. Abortion red. Guilty red. I am meat red. They nibble on my pain like emo vampires. These pain sluts. These vampire whores. I am the birthday cake at their Pity Party. Carve me up. They all want to be the girls with the most cake.

  Live through this, bitch.

  Orange sprays out of my eye-holes. It stings like a lemon. It smells antiseptic, like dish soap and toilet cleaner. Clean out that toilet brain of yours. We know you have secrets so flush them out. Cry. Yes, baby, cry. Doesn’t that feel so good. Oh, I know it burns, baby, but we will make you feel so good. Any candy you want. You can eat Starburst and Gummy Bears all day if you want. Taste that gummy drip on your lips.

  My abdomen churns and my tears stream bright yellow. They are thick and gooey like broken eggs—sunny side up. Sunny saucer eyes. Nothing but yellow slime. Guilt. Madness. Regret. The creeping bad feelings that start slow and then come fast. A sunny day. Everything seems fine until suddenly it’s not. You are out for coffee, laughing with your friends, being silly, being stupid, making fun of people. Suddenly it’s like the audio went mute. Then the sounds start to dial down. Yellow baby. You are a coward. You don’t deserve good things. You don’t deserve to not hate yourself. Die, bitch. Die with us and be amazing. You can even be yellow if you want. You can be whatever color you wanna be cause you’re a star.

  The grass doesn’t look so green, on any side. No grass. You can’t even imagine what that green grass looks like. Grass in your pipe just like rancid skunk jizz. Nothing there. No color anymore. Like someone stole your thunder that you didn’t even know you had but now you miss it, and now you know you had something cause its gone. Your heart is empty. It used to be full of rainbows and glitter. Now it’s a dead box full of dried rose petals and bits of bone. Your heart is a graveyard of regrets. The dead baby sits in there, chewing bits of your rotting heart. The baby lives on you and you are already dead. Come, sister, come with us. We love you. We will love you like you have never been loved before. We know how to fix your sad.

  Why does the rainbow taste like fire? I am vomiting a jet of every color. The ghost girls are dancing around me, waving their pale rubbery arms from side to side. A record plays in the distance. A woman sings soft and sad along to a calliope. It plays slow then fast then slow again like someone is messing with the record player speed. It’s scratched. It keeps skipping. Every time it skips the girl’s movements skip along with it, going fast, then slow, blurring, chopping, like a badly edited and decomposing damaged film reel. It is jarring and pulling me in. I feel split off like someone else is getting this new body and I am just kind of being erased. Am I just my feelings? What am I without them? Will I be a ghost girl like them? A Sad Toon stuck on repeat in this strange forest where things are always dying?

  Bass drums and piano join the calliope and a chorus of women join the solitary crooner. The girls are dancing more fiercely like they are lost in a trance, despite the skipping and jumping needle scratching up this strange song. They sway from side to side. They gyrate. Unbridled lust oozes from their thrusts. They touch themselves. They touch each other. They lock lips and lock eyes and grind against each other. They eat pieces off each other like they are all just pretty candies. They chew each other’s fingers. They eat off each other’s faces and they keep on dancing as black goo drips out of their nose and eye holes. And then they start coming for me. I try to scream but I cannot.

  I grab my throat. I cannot take it. It feels like a dam that is about to burst. One of the ghost girls ceremoniously presents me with the silver knife. It is sharp and wide and long. The handle is inlaid with diamonds and pearls. I look up at her searchingly. She smiles tenderly and simply nods her head.

  I take the blade and slice it across my throat. An immense relief and gushing deep blue rushes out. How did I live with this ocean churning all the time inside of me? I cough and lean over. My hands fly to my gaping throat out of pure instinct. The deep blue turns bright blue and then baby blue, gushing through my fingers like a waterfall. Fierce. Unyielding. Endless. All that. All that. That feeling like no. How can I feel all this. The blue streams out of my eyes.

  I think I’ve got the blues.

  “Blue is the warmest color,” she whispers in my ear before kissing my cheek. I look up. She bends down and kisses my lips. Her lips feel cool and smell like a peppermint forest. She kisses my eyelids. Her cool lips against my burning eyes. This fever feeling. This swirl of colors. I want peace. Her hand on my head, cooling my bleeding brain till it goes numb . . .

  Your brain feels like a blackberry milkshake, deep purple with little marshmallows on top. The rich, creamy sweetness drips down your spine, warming and cooling at the same time.

  But I never drink milkshakes.

  I am on a diet.

  Act II

  One Month Ago

  The sadness crept in like a tenacious fungus. All the girls at my school started dyeing their hair bright and pastel colors, cutting themselves, and listening to boy bands with bad hair and baby faces.

  I thought I was immune. One day, my classmates started disappearing. Word got around that there was this forest that they liked to go to.

  If you were a Sad Girl, that was the place to go. It was the perfect spot to camp out and blog about being sad or cut yourself and post pics on Tumblr.

  #ImSoSad #FML #IHurtMyselfToday

  #SuicideForest

  #BleedLikeMe

  Sad Girls who posted teary-eyed selfies in the Suicide Forest would get at least 200 ‘likes.’ If they were as pretty as they were sad, they could get 1000 ‘likes.’

  It was pretty good incentive.

  I never cared about being popular, but the sadder I was, the more drawn to the Suicide Forest I felt. Warm waters and misty mountains. The deep lush green of endless trees. The protective canopy of leaves blocking out the sunlight and the world. Ponds full of frogs. Stones covered in velvet moss. The secret in my bones ringing a bell.

  The forest was calling me.

  It started as a weight upon my chest as I slept. I would wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. I started sleeping for a full 12 hours a night on a regular basis.

  Then my muscles started stiffening and getting sore for no reason. I didn’t do sports. Most physical activity I did was walk a half mile to and from school and sometimes to the diner that stood about halfway between the two.

  The sadness spread like a cancer until everything hurt and all my thoughts were just shades of gray like an old cartoon while my dreams became more vivid, colorful, and elaborate. They seemed more real than reality.

  In my dreams I would remember things. I would remember to return to places that I had left. I would meet people and beings who made direct eye contact with me like they really knew me, like they were not just my own brain blinking its big subconscious eyes back to me.

  I had recurring dreams about black and white cartoon girls dancing around me in a circle while a strange song played on a scratched record, over and over again. Their eyes were huge and black with no whites. Their movements were rubbery like Betty Boop in those old Max Fleisher cartoons. They danced closer and closer.

  I would wake up paralyzed with fear, glued to my sweat-stained sheets for ten minutes and gifted with a splitting headache that lasted for hours.

  I started taking multivitamins, jogging, burning candles, hoarding crystals, and taking long baths. In the warm bathwater I would go under and hold my breath. I would try to stay under but I alway
s came back up again.

  Nothing was working. I was walking around in a fog. Each day it was harder to get out of bed. My body felt like it was made of wood. I decided that what I needed was a change of scene.

  I turned my messy closet upside down looking for my tent. I plowed through piles of dirty socks, underwear, and colorful clothes that I probably would never wear again cause all I wore anymore was black. I stubbed my big toe on My Little Pony Mansion and tripped over my 12 Little Ponies, kicking them and yelling “fuck!” (Sorry Apple Jack L)

  I finally spotted the jutting tip of my baby pink tent. My heart froze at the sight of it. I had forgotten when the last time was that I had used it but now the memories all came flooding back.

  Act III

  The Story of the Pink Tent

  Last time I had used it was two years ago on the night I lost my virginity. I was 16. I was in love. Well, I guess we both were.

  I had lied to my mom and told her I was going camping with my girlfriends, but really I was gonna get my cherry popped.

  We found a clearing near the edge of the forest, far in enough to not be found but not so far in we would get lost. We both had a terrible sense of direction and he was definitely not the Boy Scout type.

  We made a fire despite both of us being totally unequipped for survival in the wild. We roasted marshmallows on sticks. He kissed me with a mouth full of gooey burnt marshmallow and spit it into my mouth. I was so pissed and he just laughed, and so then I started laughing and put marshmallow goo in his hair, which led to wrestling, which led to naked wrestling, which led to humping.

  It was a beautiful night. The moon was full. I had made sure of that. It was perfect.

  A few weeks later I was so dizzy and nauseous I had to call in sick to school. After a week it was hard to convince my mother that all I had was a bad cold or maybe food poisoning.

  I called him. I was shaking.

  “I think I’m pregnant.” I said.

  Without a second’s pause he asked, “Did you take a pregnancy test?”

  “Well, no, but there’s nothing else this could be. I am so dizzy every time I try to smoke a cigarette and my stomach hurts like when I am about to get cramps but it’s already a week late.”