Horror Stories of 1,000 Words or Less
For the month of September 2025, these are the stories that entertain us most.
* It's There by Serena Z
* Meat Eaters by Reema Salah
* First Class Delivery by JP Ryan
* The Walk Home by Jackson Strauss
* Zee Town by Michaele Jordan
* Closing Time by Nick Porisch
* The Thirteenth Floor by Zary Fekete
* This Is Living by ML Strijdom
* Child Ogre by Cynthia Pitman
* Guillotine Tide by Lucy Updyke-Welch
* Candy Seance by Milanka Sulejic
* My Sockrifice or the Loosing of the Dryergeist by Sam Arlington
* Pipes by Ashley Dryden
* My Last Letter by Ghazal Ghaffari
* Walk-Ins by Matt Scott
* Occlusion by Stephanie Henderson
* The Click of a Spoke by Owen Townend
* The Needle by Eunsoo Lee
* A Monster Hunter's Final Exam by Adrienne Rex
* Nemophilia by J.J. Hillard
It's There by Serena Z
As she stopped to catch her breath, she looked back over her shoulder. There appeared to be nothing there, but she knew it was there. It lurked in the shadowy nothingness just off the edge of the trail, writhed in the dark spaces between trees. It crept just behind her, silently teasing the bare skin between her sock and the bottom of her leggings.
It blew gently on the hairs on the back of her neck, raising them ever so slightly in alarm. She turned forward once more and shrank further into her hoodie when something appeared to dart just out of eyesight.
The wind swooshed the dead leaves around, which stirred mockingly against the paved path. They whispered and laughed at her unease. She took tentative steps, careful to touch her heel to toe with every tread.
Thunder and lightning cracked overhead while shivers danced their way along her spine. The thunder muttered warnings: it spoke of the horrors that lay just behind her, yet out of sight.
Her breath bloomed into the chilled air and formed a cloud that hovered momentarily in front of her face. The cloud drifted into the air and mingled with paranoid whispers.
A twig snapped; she screamed. A long, drawn-out shriek filled the air as it forced its way through her bated breath. Her scream echoed through the quiet and squirmed into the cracks of the rocks. It heard the scream; it watched her flinch. She sat heavily on the path, curled up into a protective spherical shape.
Sharp stones of gravel dug into her thighs. Sounds murmured, sounds of nature that became sounds of warning. She felt the touch of the thing on her shoulder and heard the threats of her demise spoken. It was the thing that lived to haunt her; it fed on her fear. It bolstered its antagonizing theorizing with every new element around her. It was everything, and it was nothing at all. It burrowed in the deepest part of her, sunk its penetrating claws into her soul. The thing was her; she was the thing. And that, perhaps, was the scariest part of it all.
Serena Zygmunt is a young author based out of northern New Jersey. She is a high school student, aspiring to study abnormal psychology as it relates to behavioral profiling. She regularly posts her stories on her Substack at Serena’s Shelf. Serena has previously been published in The Dread Literary Review and recently won the Sunshine Blogger Award. She is currently working on her first novel.
Meat Eaters by Reema Salah
The man looked up and blinked as a smear of dawn bled through the cracks in the broken glass.
A deep gash throbbed along his forearm, bound tight with a blood-soaked shirt. Yet he felt nothing but the rumbling craving in his belly.
His nostrils flared, and his mouth watered. He looked down again.
The rotten, headless corpse under his feet reeked. Still twitching. "It" had attacked him from behind a minute ago. It was hungry too, and once human.
Every kill twisted his stomach tighter.
The man longed for meat. Real meat. Not the vacuum-sealed, rubbery pulp stacked in this store's freezers. No, the kind he used to help prepare on his uncle's farm. Meat that resisted and twitched. Meat that remembered being alive. His jaw ached for the resistance of tendon, the slow give of fat.
He stared at labeled piles of food spread out on the shelves. Cans of beans stacked like bricks. Crushed boxes of cereal half-fused to the metal. A row of baby food jars, labels faded and floating in yellow pulp.
He rolled each brand name on his tongue, tasting it. Each time, he recoiled.
The man needed to name his food. Needed to utter the name before eating it. To taste and savor each letter and syllable. A habit wired deeper than instinct.
When he grew older—old enough to hunt—he still had to brand his prey. And they had to be real names. If the hunger twisted his insides, he'd invent one. But the taste would sour. The lie would rise like bile in his throat.
The hunger rumbled again. For a breathless moment, it sounded like the moans of a dying animal gutted open.
His fingers twitched. His rifle clicked. Empty.
Time's up. Back to safety.
The streets crawled with meat-eaters, dead and alive. The living ones gnawed at his senses. The stink crept down his windpipe. Voices scraped his eardrums. Skin sweat-slicked, hot, and tender.
Six days ago, a small pack of them had nested a block from his house. Shit-smelling, spit-talking, barefoot-stomping savages. They didn't even cook. Teeth sank into raw meat—gorging, grinding—while the nerves still kicked.
Their last prey holed up in a rotting church. A family. Four of them. The youngest boy slumped over the butchered heap, mute and unblinking. The savages circled—knives raised, mouths dripping. The man fired five clean shots. No bullet wasted.
The boy hadn't stepped outside the safe house since that morning. Curled in the corner of the living room, face buried, knees drawn tight to his ribs. Shivering hard enough to shake his bones loose.
The hunger sat beneath the man's ribs. Silent. Patient.
Each morning, the man went out to scavenge for him. He thought of him first now.
Thin frame. Bony limbs. Sunken cheeks. Barely any meat on him. Too weak to stand for long. It made coming home empty-handed feel worse. But he always came back. And the hunger always came back with him.
The road home dragged. Every step, a walk through a minefield. Meat-eaters staggered at intersections, stared through shattered windows, slithered beneath rusted cars. They'd infested the town—sucked it dry and kept chewing.
When the man finally reached the house, he found the boy in his usual spot. Folding onto himself again, like a corpse rigor-bound in the fetal position. The man offered food he'd gathered over the weeks and stored behind locked cabinets. Canned beans. Half-fresh fruit in syrup. Protein bars with a funny smell.
A flicker of life stirred in the boy at the sight of food. He ate it all without complaint. Said nothing but Thank Yous. Added a "Sir" once.
Cute kid. So grateful. Quiet despite his fear.
The man remembered hearing one of those freaks say that fear tasted delicious. Peppered and juicy.
When the man asked the boy for his name, the boy gave him one.
But lies spoil the flavor.
Something inside the man recoiled. And something else leaned in.
The hunger whined. A pitiful parasite masquerading as a starved child. The real one just looked at him. Didn't beg for more. Took what he needed without entitlement.
He asked the man for a way to repay him. The man had an idea. But the boy wouldn't like it.
So, he asked for his name again.
And the boy gave the same one.
The lie.
Even now.
The man's smile sank into a tight line.
He cleaned the boy's wounds. Brought him water. Cooked what little he had left. Protected him from the dead hands reaching out from the bathroom wall.
But the boy kept lying. And the man remained kind. Patient.
For six long days, he endured this hunger. Even so, the man had already invested so much in this boy. This stranger with no name. He had even considered taking on a parental role with this boy. This fatherless stray.
He had pressed a hand to his ribs one night and imagined the hunger curled beneath the skin. Small. Needy. No—dependent.
Looking at the boy now, ungrateful and deceitful, the man's palm hovered over his stomach. Caressed it. Soothed it.
His mother once told him she could feel him wailing inside her womb.
The hunger wailed. For attention. For nourishment. For a parent.
He will have to gather enough wood to heat the pot. He needs to cook the boy first. He's not a damn savage.
But first, one last try.
"You've been here six days, and I never got to know your real name. You must have one, don't you? You don't have to lie. I want us to be close."
The boy was silent for a long, long moment before a pang of childish guilt forced him to speak. He swallowed hard, mouth dry, tongue slightly swollen, and finally spoke his real name.
The man uttered the name in a whisper, letting it roll slowly on his tongue, tasting how it sounded.
Peppered and juicy.
The hunger whispered:
"Delicious."
Reema Salah is an ESL writer from Kuwait. She loves writing and reading dark fiction of all kinds, especially psychological horror stories dealing with dread, paranoia, and all the scary subjective experiences of the human mind. She's also a prose-focused writer with a heavy emphasis on mood, atmosphere, and character exploration. Her style and narrative voice tend to be slightly lyrical yet grounded.
First Class Delivery by JP Ryan
Tuck knew his neighbor was a zombie.
All the signs were there: arms stretched out as it walked, a dazed expression on its face, and the horrid groaning noise.
It didn’t matter that the little boy was giggling as he ran away from his dad in the backyard. Kids are too innocent to know the difference between humans and zombies. Tuck spent the last two years studying the creatures. He could tell.
He had to do something about it.
Rule One of taking out a zombie is to catch them in the act. Some of Tuck’s online friends were in jail for attempting their attacks too early and not having the evidence to back them up. Aggravated Assault…on “humans.” The message boards recommended setting up a trap and recording it.
Tuck spent his life savings on two fancy-looking cameras, and they would finally come in use. He set one up to track the neighbor’s backyard in case the creature attacked his son. Another, he placed next to the living room window overlooking their front porch. The plan was simple:
-
Leave a box on their porch with a brain inside
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Record zombie man eating the brain
In his basement, Tuck’s computer relayed the live feed. He scrolled through the message boards for any recent successes, but there were none. In his two years of interacting with the others, no zombies had been captured. He wanted to be the first to do it. Dreamed about it. The world would view him as their hero.
Tuck Hauser - Savior of Humanity.
A scream echoed around the room, causing Tuck to jump out of his chair. In the corner, the homeless man had woken up. He shook the bars of the cage and shouted to be let out. Tuck laughed and bent down. He opened a bag and took out a syringe.
“Don’t worry, dude. We’re going to be heroes soon.”
Brains are softer than Tuck expected. He bounced it back and forth between his hands before tossing it in the box. Though he couldn’t smell anything, he assumed his neighbor would get up for the midnight snack once its nose caught the aroma. Tuck pierced holes into it to make sure it worked.
It didn’t. The neighbor's door remained closed throughout the night. Its wife found the package the next morning–her screech woke up the neighborhood. Cops arrived soon after, and Tuck had to hide the cameras. He figured they wouldn’t question him, which they didn’t, but it is better to be safe than sorry.
Tuck logged into the message board for answers.
@tuck_the_zombies_away: Day One of the mission failed. Target did not snack on the treat I provided him. Looking for advice.
@slay.intel.34: What method did you use to provide the snacks?
@tuck_the_zombies_away: Placed unmarked package on front porch.
@slay.intel.34: Maybe try putting your name on it? Make it more personable.
@tuck_the_zombies_away: Confirmed.
He handled the next brain carefully. The scent of his live-and-well hands on the previous brain may have been a problem. That or it being a homeless man’s brain. This time, he took the brain from a bank manager. More successful = more delicious? He wrote “From Tuck. Please enjoy your snack!” on top of the box.
As the night wore on, Tuck was worried he had once again failed. It had been hours, and no one came outside. This was the moment for Tuck to make a name for himself, but the zombie was ruining it. He paced across the basement, making sure not to step on the bodies. What if it was a deep sleeper? Something else would need to wake it. He crept over and pounded on the front door. A light turned on upstairs, and he ran back home to watch the feed.
As his neighbor opened the door and picked up the package, Tuck smiled. He switched the screen to the message boards and typed out:
@tuck_the_zombies_away: Target has acquired the package. Will update soon.
The cops arrested Tuck an hour later. He tried explaining the situation, but they weren’t buying it. All they cared about were the brains and dead bodies. They ignored the fact that he was saving humanity.
From the backseat of the cop car, Tuck stared at his neighbors standing in front of the house–the creature had his little boy wrapped in its arms. The pure shock on their faces as the car pulled away puzzled Tuck. Had he been wrong? He had never seen a zombie act disgusted to see brains before. He began to think the last two years of his life had been wasted.
But if Tuck looked a little further to the left, he would have seen one of the officers reaching into the box, ripping off a piece of the brain, and tossing it into his mouth.
JP Ryan is an up-and-coming horror and thriller writer . He currently lives in Louisville, Kentucky and spends his days watching people bleed–whether that be from sports on TV or horrors on the big screen. JP has always been interested in the connections between our brains, our actions, and the horrors we see (imagined or not).
The Walk Home by Jackson Strauss
It was the most beautiful day ever. The sun shone through cold and crisp air, and there was barely a cloud in the sky. Jack had finished all his schoolwork, household tasks, and martial arts training for the week and was ready to walk to the local cinema to see the new and buzzworthy horror film that had piqued his interest for some time. He made his way to the theater to catch the 7 pm showtime, with plenty of time to spare, and got some popcorn and a drink. Jack seated himself, and the previews began to roll. This was precisely the relaxing evening he had hoped for.
The film began, and Jack was utterly enthralled. After the movie’s first act, he was astonished by how it managed to tap into and provoke a sense of fear and believability, despite its premise revolving around a killer clown antagonist with supernatural strength and abilities. The film began to make him uneasy despite being a fan of horror films, novels, and cinema. Jack had read and seen everything horror offered, from the classics to hidden gems to those with obscure titles. Since the film struck a nerve with him, Jack began to sink into a meditative technique his master taught him whenever he was anxious or unsettled. Despite his attempt, Jack’s nervousness still lingered. Once the film concluded, he felt both a sense of thrill and relief. Jack never realized a movie could provoke such thoughts and sensations in him.
The credits rolled, and attendees left, and so did Jack. Once Jack exited the theater and onto the sidewalk, he took in the cool, refreshing night air, passing a few people now and then. At first, his walk was somewhat comforting as the streets were quiet and void. After just a few blocks, Jack noticed something unusual: the sounds of footsteps in the darkness. Jack quickly glanced back. There was no one present. Jack began to walk faster, brushed off this looming thought, but now the steps grew louder, louder, and were closing in. At a moment, Jack turned again, and under the dim illumination of the streetlight, the figure of a shadowy stranger stood there. This person appeared over six feet tall, with long brown hair, a black T-shirt, torn jeans, and a barely distinguishable face. The face reflected the streetlight like a blank, metallic mask.
Jack immediately froze. “You need to back off now or else,” he yelled. The dark figure did not answer but tilted its head and took slow steps forward. Jack’s heartbeat raced and pounded as he bolted to a nearby alleyway. Jack crouched behind a fence, took a shallow breath, and began to regain some composure. “Oh God, I think I lost him,” Jack muttered to himself. But when he stepped back into the street, the figure was again, this time, even closer and walking straight toward him.
Sheer panic and instinct quickly sharpened, and Jack’s martial arts training kicked in immediately. Jack steadied his breathing as he waited for the figure to close the distance. Jack lunged, striking fast and hard. His blows were powerful, but this person did not even flinch. It roared and swung back at Jack, but he dodged the forceful blow. While his counterattack failed, he could hear his master’s words echoing in his head, telling him that when a plan fails, always retreat to safety. So Jack ran.
By the time Jack reached home, his legs burned and his chest heaved. He fumbled for his keys, slammed the door, and locked it tight. In his room, Jack retrieved a pistol from under his bed, while his hands trembled as he peeked through the blinds. The figure stood in the shadows across the street. After wiping his eyes, Jack looked again, and the figure was nearly halfway to his window. “One more step and I’ll shoot,” Jack shouted through his window. The figure made loud, animalistic growls as he charged toward Jack’s open window. Jack fired instantly, what seemed to be once, twice, and even three times. The figure collapsed and dissolved into the shadows of the night, leaving behind no trace of a body, just the silence of the darkness. Jack closed the window, fell to the floor with his heart pounding, and said to himself, “No more late-night walks home.” As he stood up and looked again at the window, he saw a glimmer of that metallic shadow reflecting in the glass behind him.
Jackson Strauss is an aspiring writer with a love for literature, cinema, art, philosophy, surfing, filmmaking, and comedy acting. He is a second-degree black belt in TaeKwonDo and has an Associate’s Degree in Early Childhood Education from the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC). He lives with his family and their 2 rescue pets.
Zee Town by Michaele Jordan
Zee Town Festival!
Zee Town Festival! It’s where you want to be! Don't miss out! Everybody's going to be there!
You've never seen anything like the Zee Town Festival! The site is nestled within a scenic circle of the famous Bone Hills, overlooking warm, bubbling pools of blood and other tasty bodily fluids. The lush scent of decomposition – delicately spiced with excremental toxins – wafts on the breeze to fill your heart and mind with desire.
The entertainment is to die for! You'll rock with laughter as the contestants in the chase race stumble over their own body parts! You'll thrill to the desperate shrieks of the fleeing participants! Care to place a friendly wager on who will win, who will die, and who will be turned? Our friendly bookies are eager to serve you – you can bet your life on that!
And the cuisine! At our grand buffet, you’ll find a mouthwatering selection of organs: kidneys, lungs, livers, even the exotic islets of Langerhans, all of them guaranteed to have been aged long past solidity. The only fresh thing on the menu is the blood. There’s no need for chopsticks– just lower what’s left of your mouth into the trough and enjoy!
Michaele Jordan has worked for a kennel, a church and AT&T. She's a bit odd. Now she writes. Check out her three novels -- Mirror Maze, Blade Light and Still Life with Spaceships -- on Amazon She has numerous stories scattered around the web. She also makes pie. Beware of the nightmare of reconstruction she calls her website, www.michaelejordan.com
Closing Time by Nick Porisch
Some say there’s a restaurant way out West, maybe in the old, sun-blistered Mojave, where the staff are actually happy when you order a meal ten minutes before close. It’s a place where the lights stay on and the employees remain at their stations, hungry for customers, until exactly 10:01 PM.
At this restaurant, when you step through the door and ask if they’re still open at 9:50, they nod and say “yes” without a hint of anguish.
“Sit anywhere you like,” the host tells you. In this restaurant, not an ounce of floor sanitizer even touches the ground before the doors are locked. “Our booths by the window are always a favorite.”
You nod and find a spot you like near the window. Outside, the stars glitter over the endless desolation of the desert.
“Your server will be with you shortly,” the host says and passes you a menu.
You smooth out the wrinkles of your synthetic polo, remove your golf hat, and scan the menu. Sure, it’s late, but an omelet with the works sounds pretty good… and maybe those battered-to-order onion rings as an appetizer, too. You had a long day at the office. You deserve it.
A server approaches your table. His uniform is perfectly pressed, and his smile never dims. “Anything to drink, sir?” he asks.
“I’ll have your Desert Rose Mojito,” you say. “But instead of the rose syrup, I’ll have lavender.”
“Of course, sir,” the server says. He doesn’t even bat an eye at your modification request. The server returns to the bar.
Everyone is so nice to you here, you think. Imagine if your wife treated you like this. Heh. Well, your ex-wife, now.
“Here’s your drink, sir,” the server says. It’s 9:54. The lights are still on. The server is still smiling.
“Is your kitchen still open?” you ask.
The server nods. The kitchen is indeed still open. The prep line is unwrapped, the grill is hot, and the knives are sharp.
“I’ll have your omelet with the works,” you say, “but could I get those mushrooms sautéed? Raw mushrooms do about as much for me as a Playboy does for Elton John, if you get my drift.”
The server laughs, and you’re caught off guard. You never noticed that people usually only laugh internally at your jokes.
“Absolutely, sir,” the server says and takes your menu.
“Oh!” you say. “Are the onion rings really battered to order every time?”
The server nods.
“An order of those, too, then,” you say, and the server returns to his station.
You sip your cocktail and look through the window. Your car is parked right by the door, the lone automobile in the lot. The employees’ vehicles must be parked around the back. It’s a cold night. You’re glad you’re so close to the door.
Wait, is that a handicap spot you’re parked in?
Ah, well, you think. It’s fine. Nobody in a wheelchair goes out to eat at 9:56 PM.
Your ex-wife never liked it when you made crass jokes to customer service employees. Or when you made the kids choose from the value menu while you ordered your steak, rare. It’s nice, isn’t it? Being free to do whatever you want, when you want, with no regard for others. Heh. Who needs her and the kids, anyway?
“Here you are, sir,” the server says as he sets down your food.
It’s 10:01 PM.
“Hmf,” you grunt in response.
The meal is mesmerizing. The onion rings are golden and crispy, and the sizzling omelet is overflowing with mushrooms, bacon, peppers, and cheese. In fact, it’s so mesmerizing that you don’t even notice the host locking the front door, or the server turning the neon “OPEN” sign off.
You take a bite.
Your mouth is flooded with flavor. It is delicious. The omelet is a perfect blend of salty, creamy, and earthy notes. It’s soft, but has a nice bite to it, as well. And, god! The portions are incredible. For only $11.99? You have 14 bucks in cash on you, so that should cover it even after tax. Well, that doesn’t leave much for a tip, but it’s a Friday, so you’re sure the staff have already made their money for the day.
You keep eating. You are lost in a world of scrumptious egg and filling. You’re so lost that you don’t realize the dining room lights are off now, and only the glow of the kitchen persists.
You take another bite. You think about how your son’s Celiac disease means this restaurant probably wouldn’t have been an option if you were traveling with your family. Could you imagine missing out on a meal like this just because your son’s body is too weak to consume gluten?
You’re so absorbed in each forkful that you don’t notice anything beyond the mound of fat, salt, and protein in front of you. You don’t see the staff slowly forming a semi-circle around you. You don’t see the cooks sharpening their knives. You don’t see the eager, toothy smiles of the servers. You don’t see the hunger in the host’s eyes until she rests her hands on the tabletop.
You reluctantly pull your eyes away from the omelet.
“What’s up?” you ask. Your mouth is full—a fleck of egg lands on the host’s cheek.
She smiles. “We’re closed.” The staff descends upon you.
You never even got to try the onion rings.
Nick is a Minneapolis-based writer who likes to explore the odd stories that occur when the bizarre meets the mundane. @porischn
The Thirteenth Floor by Zary Fekete
The building had twelve windows. Always twelve.
Growing up, Mira counted them from the sidewalk each day after school: four wide ones on the top floor, four squarish ones on the middle floor, four small ones…just slits, really…on the ground level. A perfect dozen. Her mother had called the place a honeycomb. Her father had called it a box.
Years had passed. Mira had not returned since the police came and took him away. Her mother hadn’t survived that final night. The details had been in the papers, though no one talked about them much. Neighbors left flowers. One of the officers touched Mira’s shoulder and said softly, “You don’t have to go back if you don’t want to.”
But someone had to clear out the apartment.
She had what she needed—cardboard boxes, tape, the steady ritual of sorting someone else's life into boxes. Most of the apartment was quiet. The kitchen still smelled faintly of cloves. The curtains had hardened into pleats. There was a pile of unopened mail beneath the radiator. She touched each envelope as if it might bite.
The dollhouse was still in the back bedroom.
She hadn't thought of it in years. It stood on a side table, dusty but intact. The rooms were still furnished with miniature things…beds with real cloth blankets, a silver bathtub, a library with matchbox books. And then, the room. The one she had always loved most.
Top right corner. A tiny attic room with arched ceilings, a circular rug, and a little stained-glass window. She used to imagine crawling into it, leaving everything else behind. Her father’s shouting. The silence that came after. The cold, square meals. The long, inexplicable evenings where her mother folded laundry for hours, even though there wasn’t that much laundry. The dark nights that followed. The thumps.
The dollhouse room had no harsh voices or raised fists. Just a bed, a lamp, and light coming in through the window, colored by the light.
She touched the dollhouse now and almost said something aloud.
That night, on the way back from throwing out the garbage, she looked up at the building…and stopped walking.
Thirteen windows.
It wasn’t possible. She counted again, slowly. Three per floor. Four floors.
But now there was one more. High up, above the top balcony. A single lit square just beneath the roofline. Pale yellow glow, like the dollhouse lamp. She stared at it until her eyes burned.
The next morning, she climbed the building’s inner staircase farther than she’d ever gone before. Past the fourth floor, where the hallways turned narrow and the light switches worked on timers. She passed a rusted hatch labeled “Attic.”
The door creaked but opened.
Inside was the room.
Full-sized. Arched ceiling. Circular rug. Wooden bed with a lamp beside it. And the stained-glass window.
She stepped inside and felt the dust on her skin. It smelled like pine and something older, like cloth that had been folded and forgotten. The room was empty.
The light through the stained glass made the floor look like a map. Red, green, blue continents. She crossed them slowly and sat on the bed. The springs gave a tired groan, then held.
She looked around. There were no pictures on the wall. No clock. No calendar.
Just a room that waited. She stepped in. Behind her, the door clicked shut.
And then, a feeling of cold mist passed through her chest. A slight smell of dusty hair. And a familiar voice…creaky like old wood…yet unmistakable.
“You found me.”
Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addiction) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete Bluesky:zaryfekete.bsky.social
This Is Living by ML Strijdom
“Mia, darling! You’ve arrived! Only brilliant doctors are invited on board!” Theo smirked, waving me in from the 160 m superyacht’s stern.
“How could I miss an opportunity to celebrate New Year’s Eve?” I said, straightening my little black dress. But I only thought of scalpels, not his swaying kisses. It wasn’t his smoldering gaze that awakened my desire to sunbathe on a floating tax haven.
I strolled onto the deck, welcomed by a glass of champagne. The anchor was hoisted, and the yacht glided into the darkness. I realized there was no escape. My senses blazed, unsure if it was excitement or a warning.
“I spot talent better than sharks scents blood,” Theo said, clinking glasses. He showed me around, each chamber dripping with gold and paintings worthy of the Louvre. “Medicine’s a brutal game. I knew you were sharp the moment you corrected the bartender’s pronunciation of ‘Negroni Sbagliato.’”
“Once I taste standards, mediocrity loses its appeal,” I said, touching his cheek.
He refilled my glass. “Between nations, where only maritime laws apply, that’s where the real stuff goes down,” Theo pointed outside. “We crawl in a ‘free zone’, so to speak. I’ll become king of this world, and you, my dear Doc, can reign as my queen. Together, we can live our dreams.” He leaned in for a kiss. “I only surround myself with like-minded people. You’d be surprised how rare that is, especially in your field.”
He broke away and led me to the hull. The dim light of the chandelier cast Theo's face into a shadow, transforming him into a dark figure. He stroked my blonde fringe aside and murmured, “I’ve got something to show you.”
The hull’s door creaked open, and Theo stepped in with a sly smile on his lips. Coldness soaked the room from the corner’s walk-in fridges. More than a dozen bodies were tethered to metal tables and linked to ventilators. The walls around me gently swayed, rocking with the ship.
It felt like I was back in the dissection lab with my beloved Frank. He was the first body I ever loved—cadaver #14. I gave him a name, talked to him while I worked. He never judged how long I held the scalpel.
I covered my mouth and held a gasp of wonder. The familiar scent of formalin clung to my fingertips.
“My darling, Mia,” he purred. “You were the one I was looking for. You see, I needed to start avoiding customs and move capital, so here I am.” He raised his arms, gesturing grandly to his kingdom.
“You bring me here to play god with corpses?”
Theo crouched against a wall, his eyes gleaming. “You’re the missing chess piece,” he whispered. “We need a new doctor to harvest organs. You possess passion and eagerness. You think I met you by chance?” Theo smiles. “No, darling. I’ve seen your records. Academic performance. Surgical notes. The hands of a master, your professor said. I’ve been watching you for months.” Theo strolled between the beds. “You were exceptional, until your funding dried up.”
He wasn’t wrong. My surgical dream died with the last loan rejection letter. Now I was living on microwave pasta and expired mascara.
I glimpsed a collection of extracted teeth showcased in a Venetian vase. A strange sense of arousal coursed through me. I recalled the pleasure of yanking the front tooth from my Frank. I relished the urge to cut people open once more. A deep hunger ignited within me. Some found it unsettling that I ate cheese sandwiches while dissecting.
I didn’t.
I smiled.
I enjoyed testing different scalpel sizes to see which sliced cleaner—cutting the formalin-infused Pectoralis Major as if it were a chicken thigh. Muscle is muscle. After that, eating meat felt almost redundant.
“What will I get out of this?”
“Money, darling.” Theo gestured, rubbing his fingers together.
This rich prick’s plan proved enticing. It was grotesque and perfect. I yearned for adventure, and this decision would free me from my financial worries. After all, dancing with capitalism is like playing with fire.
“What happened to your previous Doc?” I asked.
Theo scoffed. “Whistleblower.”
I should’ve walked away. But I didn’t. I studied the room the way I once studied Frank. I stared at the precise sutures, the glint of bone saws, the sterile beauty of humans lying in front of me. Frank taught me to cut with care. Theo reminded me of why I loved it. This was an opportunity.
I didn’t say no because I was horrified. I didn’t say no because he was a brute. I didn’t say yes, either. Because I had another plan.
A good hunter doesn’t show off her kills. She watches. Waits. She admires the anatomy. Measures the weight of the trap before springing it.
“You think I’m your missing piece?” I stepped forward, eyes level. “Maybe you’re mine.”
Theo frowned.
I selected a fifteen-blade from the sterile tray. I stared at the scalpel. And then back at him. It felt heavier than it used to. I stepped closer, keeping it low by my side, tilting my head as if leaning in for a kiss—he didn’t see this coming when the edge slipped between his ribs.
Frank wouldn’t have hesitated. Neither should I.
Theo’s eyes widened. He grabbed at the laceration, as if pressure could hold in what my precise cut had already taken. His body fell to the ground, gasping for air.
I wiped the knife-edge clean and slipped it into my dress pocket. An empty ventilator stood nearby, and I reached for it. “You're one of them now.”
Respect the blade, and the body opens willingly.
The seas are the true keepers of the filthy rich’s secrets, and what Frank taught me will not be buried with them. Now I understand what my professor meant about my elegant hands. They weren’t gifted. They were destined. The yacht wasn’t Theo’s kingdom anymore. It was mine.
ML Strijdom is a South African medical professional, emerging writer and newbie photographer, crafting stories in her second language. She draws inspiration from untamed landscapes and african sunsets, often found on safari. Her work was recently recognized with an Honourable Mention in the Tenth Writers Playground Competition, published in Livina Press, Scifi-Shorts, Instant Noodles and forthcoming in Westword. Find her on Instagram @ml_strijdom and Bluesky @mlstrijdom.bsky.social.
Child Ogre by Cynthia Pitman
Child Ogre is no more than eleven when I see him leave the crawl space where we keep him under our house’s wood plank floor. Wiggling out between the cement block pilings on hands and knees – his distorted body forever bent half-way prone from living so confined all his short life –, he makes his way to the skinning shed where, each time Papa returns from the village hunt for The Missing, he takes the wild beasts he captures from dark Belhellen Wood. The door stands open about half a crack, but Child Ogre fiddles and fiddles till he finds his way in.
With the light from the full moon, I can see from my window when he bares his teeth and bites into a thick goat skin hanging loose from the skinning block. He pulls it down with a yank, letting it fall to the floor, then spits out the loose fur crawling with ticks and lice. His fingers gnarled and his talons extended, he grabs the goat skin and slings it over his shoulders. It falls heavily on his back, hanging down farther than needed to cover his misshapen body. The goat skull, stripped of fur and skin down to the sallow bone, lies on the floor, its hollow eye sockets staring. Child Ogre nudges his head into its bones until the skull settles snug around his neck. The sharp horns stand ominously on his head.
He crawls out of the skinning shed door, turns, and heads toward the tree line of Belhellen Wood. Without hesitation, I climb through the window and follow him. I stay close and quiet. I drop to my hands and knees so if he turns around, I can crunch myself into the shape of wild brush and won’t be seen. When he enters the Wood, I enter behind him. He snakes through the underbrush with me no farther than a stone’s throw behind him. Without a goat skin like his to protect me, I am prey to the slashes of the bristling undergrowth. The slashes sting and start to bleed. I stay close behind him, nevertheless.
He stops. I stop, too. But when he remains still, I creep forward. I get close enough to see what he sees: a clearing. He enters. I inch ahead, keeping my head down, until I can see him clearly. He is crouching by a stone bigger than he is. Flat, smooth, with brown stains streaking down its sides, the stone sits in the middle of the clearing and catches the glow of the moonlight. It is some kind of altar.
Then Child Ogre lifts his chin to the moon and shrieks. The shriek echoes through the Wood. It is followed by a howling so loud I must cover my ears. Then the brush begins to move. Figures seep through the ragged edges of the clearing, one by one, on hands and knees, in unctuous lines, gruesome ogres with the faces of ghouls and gargoyles hanging low. Some are gaunt, their faces and frames falling in folds. Others are corpulent, skin stretched tightly around their bulging girth. They keep coming until they encircle the altar, filling the clearing. The howling stops.
I lean closer to watch. Then – a deep stabbing pain. I hear a scream. The scream is mine. Something has jabbed me in the back, some sort of horn or tusk. I feel it shoved deep inside. I know without looking that one of the ogres has attacked me. I feel myself being lifted and carried. I am thrown on the altar. The ogres come closer, circle around me, and begin to howl again. I turn my head. The pain of twisting sears my spine. I see their faces, and what I see from the altar are their real faces. They have fangs and snouts and fur and blood-red eyes. These are not ogres; these are the wild creatures of Belhellen Wood. The skins they wear are but cloaks made from The Missing, the innocent people who dared travel this Wood.
Child Ogre looms over me, then stabs a goat horn into my shoulder, hooks it under my skin, and drags it down to my wrist, slitting my skin. I scream in pain. It is when my blood seeps deep red from the slit that I realize: this is no altar. I am alive. And I am on a skinning block.
Cynthia Pitman, author of poetry collections The White Room, Blood Orange, Breathe, and the forthcoming Broken, has been published in Flash Phantoms, Amethyst Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Third Wednesday (One Sentence Poem Contest finalist), Saw Palm (Pushcart Prize fiction nominee), and other journals, and in anthologies Pain and Renewal, Brought to Sight & Swept Away, Nothing Divine Dies, and What is All This Sweet Work?
Guillotine Tide by Lucy Updyke-Welch
Etheus could faintly make out the wood of his coffin. It was almost pitch black, but a faint ghostly firelight flitted from his profane necklace. He could hear the tide above him, slowly approaching.
A growling began deep in the back of Etheus’s throat. He pulled back his lips and sneered like a wolf, straining his limbs against the chains holding him down. The chains were new; his fingers were still torn and bloody from the last sandy grave.
A faint dripping sent shivers of pure dread through him. The tide above had reached him. Freezing briny water leaked through the cracks in the coffin, burning his skin like a frostbite victim.
A vein started above Etheus’s face: water dribbled on his cheek, splashing salty sprays into his mouth, running in rivulets down his neck and along his spine, joining rivers that spilled down his chest and legs, pooling at his feet. They were submerged in water colder than snow. Instead of becoming numb, the pain just sharpened, his muscles and bones aching like they’d crack and rupture at any moment.
Etheus tried to focus on his revenge after escaping this ouroboros prison. A faded film reel flickered to a whir in his imagination, a practiced formula of revenge.
The water rose up his calves and past his knees, prickling his thighs like thousands of needles.
He could dimly see it, the blood of the village elder—
The water reached his buttocks, making them spasm in painful jerks.
—splattering against the wall as he split open her chest barehanded—
An involuntary grunt escaped Etheus's teeth as the water hit his balls and they shrank into his body like rabbits into their burrow, failing to escape a consuming forest fire.
—popping her ribcage open like a mollusk’s shell and—
It felt like spiders crawling up his spine, biting with frigid crystalline teeth.
—eating the entrails in front of the elder’s terrified eyes and dragging her—
His plundered necklace pulsed excitedly. The glow couldn't pierce the inky water creeping past his belly button.
—wailing grandchildren to the desecrated altar at the base of the cliffs and skewering them on the spike in the middle of the stone table where death is unquenchable—
Etheus wheezed, his lungs shutting down as his chest withered under the icy water.
—as he slices and burns and smashes and chews and chars and tears and defiles until blood stains his skin black and eons turns to ash—
The firelight from the necklace extinguished and transmuted into shimmering shadows as the water overcame it, pulsing like the bottom of the sea floor. Only now did Etheus allow himself to scream. The claustrophobic sound crashed against the walls inches from his face and died against the water rising past his chin.
—until he is the monster that they made a beast of circumstance and projection, a grotesque figurehead of their fears shaped and molded by them until he is exactly as they imagined him to be—
The relentless water swallowed his head. He thrashed against his bonds, his lungs burned and strained for breath.
—they would reap what they had sown, and the village would DROWN
Finally, he spluttered, and water poured into his mouth, down his trachea, so viscerally salty he forgot other flavors existed. He tried to cough as water filled his lungs, but that only brought more in, chilling him like an icicle hammered down his throat.
His jerks weakened until he floated in a watery hell, trapped in freezing limbo. His nerves would never stop screaming. Not until the tide receded. And the cycle began anew.
Each time, his imagined revenge dimmed. Soon it would be wiped completely, like carved rock weathering on a mountaintop. And Etheus would disappear with it.
Lucy is an emerging author from Portland, Oregon, working on their BA in English and Creative Writing. When not at school, Lucy can be found wandering the woods for old forgotten places.
Candy Seance by Milanka Sulejic
I shouldn’t have gone up there.
Not alone.
Not on Halloween.
Not with a mouth full of stolen candy and the attic key I found buried in the velvet lining of my mother’s jewelry box—the one she never opened.
But I was eleven and had just learned the word séance from a girl at school who swore that her sister once made a ghost cry using an Ouija board and a silver ring. I didn’t believe her. Not exactly. But I wanted to.
The attic wasn’t cold. Not really. It was dry—dry like an old church no one prays in anymore. The air smelled like baby powder, marker ink, and scorched paper. Candy wrappers crackled in my pocket. My jaw ached from chewing too much bubblegum, but I liked the noise it made. It filled the silence with something fizzy and alive.
The toy chest was still there, tucked under the slanted ceiling. The lock had rusted to dust, practically falling off in my hand. I didn’t remember who it had belonged to. Maybe Mom’s sister who died. Maybe no one. It just showed up one day after Grandpa passed, and nobody ever talked about it again.
I popped a cherry candy cigarette into my mouth and sat cross-legged in front of the chest. The marker inside looked too new—the label peeled like sunburn, but the cap clicked clean. I uncapped it and scrawled my name across the back of my hand.
It looked like someone else’s handwriting.
Then I heard it—a slow, deliberate creak behind me.
I turned.
Nothing.
But the air was different.
Heavier. Like a breath held too long.
Inside the chest were dolls with perfect hair and eyes that didn’t blink. A coloring book completely filled in—not a single line crossed. A pair of white gloves that felt damp even though they were dry.
I found a mirror wrapped in tissue paper and propped it up.
My reflection blinked a second too late.
Something was here.
“Do you want to play?” I whispered, my voice sticky with marshmallow and fear.
The gum in my mouth turned bitter. The marker rolled off the toy chest and thudded to the floor.
The dolls looked different now.
Or maybe they always had.
I lit one of the birthday candles I found in a Ziploc bag and set it between us—me and the girl in the mirror.
The flame danced sideways. Not up.
Like it was pointing.
Like it was scared.
This time, my reflection didn’t blink at all.
She just watched me.
I ran, of course. Down the ladder, down the hallway, locked myself in the bathroom and scrubbed my hand until it burned.
But the name stayed.
Not mine.
Not anymore.
I haven’t gone back since.
But sometimes, I smell bubblegum in the dark.
Sometimes, I see a flash of cherry lipstick in the hallway mirror, where no one’s been.
And I wonder—
Is she still waiting?
Or maybe…
Maybe I never left.
###
🎀 Tucked-In Note
(folded, forgotten, found later, slipped between attic floorboards, scrawled in scented marker)
If you find this, it means she likes you, but be careful not to let her touch your hair or say your name out loud.
Just chew your gum, light the candle, and smile like a doll.
(she likes that)
If she asks to trade places, say you forgot how.
— me
###
☁ Whispered Postscript
(overheard in the dark)
You know how the attic door creaks even when it’s locked?
It’s not the wind.
And that thing where your mirror fogs up but you didn’t breathe on it?
That’s her.
She doesn’t need your name.
She just needs you to remember hers.
Even if you never knew it.
Especially if you never knew it.
Milanka Sulejic is a first-generation American writer and military veteran, born to parents from the former Yugoslavia. Her work channels her rich cultural heritage and life experiences into stories of transformation, resilience, and cosmic mystery. Milanka’s unique voice blends personal history with spiritual insight, creating narratives that resonate deeply with readers. She is honored to be published in Flash Phantoms and continues to explore the shadows and light within us all.
Connect with Milanka: Facebook: facebook.com/milanka.sulejic.2025 Instagram: @milankasulejic Threads: @milankasulejic Medium: @milanka.sulejic LinkedIn: milanka-sulejic
My Sockrifice or the Loosing of the Dryergeist by Sam Arlington
They’re totally going to put on my tombstone that I was the jackass who let the sock monster out. This one dumb thing will overshadow everything else I’ve done with my life, even that North Ohio Drywall Professionals Rising Star of Inside Sales award I got last year. But I guess it’s not about me anymore, so… sorry, Toledo. Hope you don’t have to call in the army or anything.
It went like this, see. I was doing curls by the mirror, bumping some leather-pants-and-tank-top dad rock—you know who I mean—while I waited for the dryer to chime its cheerful chime, so I was pretty pumped when I got to folding. I was jamming—uh, uh, uh—breezing through my least favorite chore. T-shirts, done. Underwear, check. Jeans, hung. Okay, socks, here we go. Fingers crossed. Deep breath. Ankle, ankle. Tube, tube. One sock, two sock. Red sock, blue sock.
“FUCK!” I shouted.
That was two in one load, and one of them from the embroidered blue pair I got on our honeymoon in Niagara Falls. That just tore it. It couldn’t have taken a matched pair? I might not even have noticed. This was just getting cruel, openly spiteful, skipping even the usual one-at-a-time plausible deniability that would let me chalk it up to a loose lint trap or a wayward mate dropped on the basement stairs. I couldn’t take it anymore. I lost it.
I kicked the floppy rubber laundry tub against the cinder block wall, sending the rest of the unfolded clothes skidding across the painted concrete basement floor. As it landed upside down, I took a moment to curse the last owners of the house for choosing that, of all colors, the macaroni-and-yogurt yellowy-beige of toddler vomit, to paint the floor of an already dank and dingy place.
I spun around to confront the dryer, my face twisted and red with rage. I squared my shoulders and pointed a quivering finger at it.
“Give it back,” I hissed through clenched teeth, “Or I’m coming in there.”
The little red key-shaped light that indicated “locked” blinked off. The latch clicked, and the bubbled glass door swung open, taunting me. My phone buzzed twice on the folding table. I glanced over in time to see a notification from the SmartLaundry app flash on the lock screen. Let’s go then, asshole, it read.
“That’s it, motherfucker,” I growled.
I got a two-step running start and slid on my knees toward the gaping dark of the open dryer door. I ducked my head and stuck out my arms like an Olympic diver, threading my upper half through the round hole as my thighs hit the outer casing and sent me tumbling end over end into a pillowy blackness that crackled with static electric sparks as I came to rest. The door slammed shut behind me, muffling the song just as it came to that sweet guitar riff. Wee-dew-dee-diddle-dew. You know the one. The latch clicked.
My plush landing place began to slither and writhe around me. I felt something like hot, rhythmic breathing on my neck. In the dim light of the cavernous drum, I could see knotted tentacles of old socks intertwined with wads of long blonde hair and pinkish-gray lint wrapping themselves around my limbs, feeling, appraising as they went. They began to grip and squeeze me like boa constrictors, gently at first, then with alarming force. I turned back toward the door, panicked, to see the fluorescent-lit porthole shrinking as the powerful, undulating mass of threadbare cotton pulled me further into the void.
“Becky!” I barked, my voice cracking.
My call fell flat, the perfectly absorbent soundproofing around me throttling the noise before it could reach the sealed dryer door. The fibrous coils tightened around my chest and neck and crept toward my face. The more I struggled against them, the tighter they squeezed. My arms grew numb, my head light, as they cut off my circulation and breathing.
“GYACK!” I choked.
I could feel the malevolent mass peeling the socks off my feet slowly, deliberately, gleefully savoring its new treasures.
“Take me,” I croaked, hopeful the dryergeist would accept the sacrifice and leave my family in peace, “just let the socks go.”
Through the fish-eyed lens of the shrinking glass door, I saw my phone dance and rotate as it buzzed twice on the folding table.
“I don’t have my ph—" I wheezed.
The open end of a red-striped knee-high slinked up to my pulsing ear.
“Deal,” it whispered.
“Hon?” Becky called down the stairs. Her voice was barely audible, distant and muffled through the receding dryer door. “Left a few behind the hamper.”
As my vision faded to a single point of deep red, two socks, one red, the other embroidered blue, fluttered down the stairwell and landed silently at the foot of the steps.
The latch clicked in the distance. The door swung open.
Sam Arlington is a former civil servant and amateur wine critic who comes from a very short line of semi-accomplished authors. Sam’s work has appeared in Horrific Scribes, Epic Echoes Magazine and the President's Daily Brief (yes, that one) among other publications. On the web and Bluesky @samarlington.com.
Pipes by Ashley Dryden
According to Papa, the news had been talking about the collapse of the Beryl mine for several weeks before its permanent closure. At least fifty miners got trapped in a small cave during a coal mining incident in Pennsylvania. After about three days, someone discovered that the miners had access to one of the air vents in the middle of a field after some faint shouting was heard coming from a rusty pipe sticking out of the ground where Grandpa would do photography.
When the miners tried to ask for supplies, their voices were too faint and distorted by the length of the pipe to be understood. The first responders could not make out what was being said, so they dropped a bottle attached to a string into the hole. When the bottle was opened, there was a piece of paper, a pencil, and a flashlight. After a tug was felt on the string, emergency services finally established communication. The pipe had a hole in it that people could reach through, and the inside had been eroded so that supplies could be sent through. The first responders would let out a tap to ensure that the pipe didn’t have any idiots standing underneath when they dropped items. The donations would only stop every so often so that air could circulate in and out before the pipe was used for transportation once again.
Strangers would send bottled water and food down the pipe. This was meant to tide them over until they could devise a way to evacuate people from the mine, as the air shaft was too narrow for anyone to crawl through. Each time something was dropped into the mine, a flashlight would shine to the top of the pipe to let the workers on the surface know that the package had been received. Loved ones would gather around the hole, listening to the talking and cheering, as they could rest easy knowing their miners were alright.
It had been three weeks since the food had started being sent down when the light stopped turning on. The committee had sent down more batteries, flashlights, and screwdrivers, but nothing had changed. When the messages in the bottle returned as blank paper, people began to fear for the worst.
Then the tapping started. Every so often during the day, grieving family members began to hear a soft tapping and scratching coming from inside the pipe. After some food was sent, the tapping would stop for a few hours before starting again the next day. Nonetheless, the operation to free the miners started once more, and people began to send more food and water into the pipe.
After two weeks, the mining company became curious as to the source of the tapping. There shouldn’t be anything moving around in the mine to create such a noise unless there was a breeze. If the wind was in the mines, perhaps the miners had found an exit. So, early one morning, the workers on the surface hired Grandpa to attach a wireless night vision camera to a fishing wire and lower it into the pipe. It was left there for a whole day before the commissioner pulled it out. Papa managed to catch Grandpa watching the video from his living room when Grandma thought he was asleep; that’s how he knows enough to tell me these things. Grandpa was going to have the first glimpse of the miners before the footage was to be released to their worried families.
However, the footage was never released.
The first few minutes after the camera landed showed a menagerie of skeletons at the entrance of the pipe. The bones looked brittle and moist, with limbs and headless torsos scattered about the cave floor like the bedding of a hamster, some with pieces that could not be identified due to how badly they had been shredded. The only one with any flesh left was the rotting, severed head that gazed longingly at the base of the pipe. It had just one eye that wasn’t gouged out, and a puddle of rot began to form where the tongue should have hung out of the jaw. The others were dismembered, often with the rib cage broken open, and some looked like they had been turned inside out like a freshly peeled sock.
As the shock of the carrion began to seep into Grandpa's eyes, something else began to creep onto the scream from the corner of the room. He could see it clearly, but he did not know what it was. It had a fleshy body, and three twig-like legs entered the frame, its feet being nothing but a small set of toeless circular lumps, and its body being covered in a long, thick ocean of dirty hair. Its face appeared to be nothing but a thin sheet of skin wrapped around a dog’s skull with two black marks where the eyes should be. After reaching a three-clawed appendage out, it grabbed the severed head and stuffed it into its maw full of tiny wet teeth, only pausing to spit out the bare skull with a disgusting expression at the flavor of the stale meat. Then it hobbled over to the hole in the pipe and sniffed at the camera before taking a long, starving lick. After a few more disappointed sniffs, it used its bony claw to tap the side of the pipe before humbling back into the tunnels of the cave.
As of now, the Beryl mine has been sealed off for many years. The pipe is still there. I used to walk by it on my way home from school and drop flowers into it. Two days ago, Papa found me near the pipe and begged me not to go near it anymore.
Sometimes he still hears the tapping.
Ashley Dryden is a writer, photographer, musician, and game designer who is trying to make a name for themself. Their interests include horror, humor, and folklore. They have previously been featured in Shoofly and Writers Resist. Their piece, the Isamacks Excerpt, has won a writing contest and earned them the Bennett Harris Writing Award. Ashley plans to turn this into a full novel at some point. Ashley loves her parents and her dogs. https://www.shutterstock.com/g/YesImThatSqueak
My Last Letter by Ghazal Ghaffari
Dear Saul,
I’ve been told that you’re not accepting any letters from me. That you’d throw them out at first, but then they didn’t bother giving them to you. I’m glad that’s the case. I don’t want anyone reading this letter. This is just something I need to say—or confess.
I knew what you were thinking, what you wanted to do. I just didn’t believe you would actually do it.
There were no signs in the beginning. None that I noticed, anyhow. We were just so tired all the time. I’ll never forget how scared we both were when two lines showed on the stick. You told me, “I can’t do this.” I should have listened.
When he was born, it was like something just clicked. The moment I heard him screaming, breathing air, I was his mom. I knew I’d be living for him from then on. But you held him, looked down at him like he was a pillow. I saw nothing. You couldn’t even smile for your mom. I told myself it would change. I’ve heard that men take longer than women to become parents. That love would grow gradually. But there remained an empty space that you never filled, words you never said.
I shouldn’t have let you get that job. It changed you. Maybe not all at once, but slowly. The way you came home coated in gore, but didn’t bother washing off until it was time for bed. You stopped showering altogether. I was so nervous when I finally told you to change, scared out of my mind about how you’d react, but you’d stopped at that point. You weren’t talking. You just stared. I told myself you were just exhausted, zoning out.
But the way you stared at him. I shivered every time.
The meat you’d bring home started smelling differently. It felt off. It was too sweet. You were too excited. You started smiling at him the same way you did when you ate. I told myself you were finally starting to love him. I convinced myself.
That night, you told me he was at your mother’s. I believed that, too. I was crying and shaking, but I just kept telling myself that he’s fine, that you wouldn’t hurt him. I called her when I saw the red spots in the garage, and the freezer door was locked tight. She hadn’t heard from you in weeks.
I tried, you know? I really did try to understand you. To understand why you did what you did. I tried blaming the slaughterhouse. The environment, your coworkers, all that blood. But how many butchers eat their own son?
It hurts. It hurts to say it. It’s the first and last time I’m saying it.
I should have protected him. I should have seen the way he squirmed when you held him. The way you’d squeeze his arm, look at the skin you’d made blush. I should have grabbed him and run when I saw the bite mark.
I just wanted us to be happy. I thought he’d make us what we once were.
—E.
Walk-Ins by Matt Scott
Miko never thought in a million years that he would ever be a chef. Never wanted to be. Not ever. It wasn’t something he aspired to be just five short years ago hanging drywall and painting apartments.
But now…
Here he was getting ready for his first shift as a sous chef, having just graduated from culinary school in May. He loved the fall. Loved the fact that he took the summer to decompress, allowing him to give this new position his very best. He was ambitious, and being a sous chef was just his first step on his career path to the big time—Vegas baby.
Gordon Ramsey can suck his d…
There was a knock at the front door.
What the…
He didn’t have time for guests nor patience for salesmen. He ignored the knock.
There it was again. Faint, like a whisper on a breeze. Childlike.
Then the bell rang. The low gong of the chime reverberated through the tiny home.
He looked out his bedroom window down at the front yard below.
The sun was setting, but he could see three small figures standing at the edge of his yard on the other side of the driveway, near the hedges.
He hated those damn things, but trimming them was something he merely lacked the time to do, like so many things as of late. Hell, for the past five years, truth be told. But all the hard work and late nights and canceled weekend plans (last-minute, always) were all worth it. Tonight, he opened The Shadow Box, an upscale restaurant owned by Michelin Star-winning chef Alberto Massoni.
He simply didn’t have time for this Micky Mouse Bullshit, as his brother would have said, if he were still alive.
Soren was a hard man to love. A square-jawed control freak whose moral compass always pointed in the path of least resistance. He liked stuff his way, easy. But he was the only big brother Miko had ever had, and he died three years ago. Car wreck. Late night. Dark road. You know the story. He missed him. Could really have used him tonight. He hated telling kids to fuck off. But fuck off, they must. He had bigger fish to fry. Literally.
Still, the doorbell continued to ring, and Miko hurried down the stairs to see just what the hell they wanted. It had better be good.
Yes, chef.
He looked out the door. Could see nothing. Opened it. Stepped outside onto the small concrete stoop. “Hello.” He said, his voice raised, parental, commanding. “You kids find something better to do than ding dong ditch me tonight, ok?” He relaxed a little. They were, after all, only children. He saw them not five minutes ago from his upstairs window. They must have moved on by now or were hiding from him. Either way, they were merely annoying, and he doubted very seriously that they were anything but a minor menace, harassing the neighbors before it got too dark outside. Kids being kids, he supposed.
“I’m cold.” A small voice from the darkness beyond his porchlight. “I’m so very cold. Will you let me in, please?” He strained his eyes against the void that was his front yard. It was unnaturally dark. He looked at the sky.
There were no stars, no moon, only black, fat, heavy clouds stretched over his neighborhood, hell, over the face of the deep itself. He looked back toward the gloom of his front lawn.
“I’m cold. Will you let me in, please?” Another voice, this time that of a little boy, from somewhere off to his right. Miko spun around, almost stepping off the stoop.
What the…?
“I’m cold.”
“I’m cold.”
“I’m cold.”
“I’m cold.”
“Let us in.”
“Let us in, please.”
“Please.”
“I’m cold.”
“Let me in.”
The voices were all around him in the gloaming.
They were an infernal chorus. His ears began to throb and bleed. His nose dripped blood like a leaky faucet. His eyes watered, red tears running down his reddened cheeks. His fingertips ached with an electric pain, and his palms were hot. So hot. As if he had touched a hot burner or picked up a hot pan by the handle. He had done it before. And now, he felt dizzy, sick to his stomach. The whole world spinning out in front of him like some topsy turvy drunken memory, he was staggering to maintain his balance on the small porch.
Failing, he flailed to the ground, spinning like a top on his way down.
###
The small backyard. A small wood fire. A pot. Some logs to sit on. A long folding table to put the plates on.
###
“The fire is nice.”
“The fire is warm.”
“Thank you for the fire.”
“The fire is good.”
The voices were inside his head.
He opened his eyes.
He was out back. In his own backyard. He could hear the interstate. Smell the asphalt over the wet pine boughs crackling in the fire. Could feel the heat and the grass and smell the dog shit, which was the only thing green and growing in the yard next door.
The children sat all around the fire on the logs. They faced the flame and Miko, who lay on the ground beside it.
He looked in their faces, into their eyes, black as pitch, shining like ebony in the firelight.
On the fire, the water in the pot bubbled and churned.
One of the children stood. Raised his arm, and Miko could see that he held a butcher knife above his head. One of his own, no doubt stolen out of his very own kitchen.
Another child stood. Raised his arm, a knife in his outstretched hand.
Another child.
And another.
“So hungry.”
“So very hungry.”
“Feed us.
“Feed us, please.”
“Please.” The voices cut through his brain like razor wire. His body convulsed as they began cutting. The fleshy parts first. He knew this. Had gone to school for it.
Matt Scott is the author of over one hundred published short horror stories as well as five stand alone collections of terse and terrifying tales. He lives in southern Colorado with his wife, Heather, and their house full of fur balls. He loves to watch old movies, to paint, throw knives, play piano, collect books and to put himself in precarious situations in the forest all the while telling his wife he knows exactly where they are...so maybe he's a better writer than survivalist...let's hope so.
Occlusion by Stephanie Henderson
Emmy was probably asleep, but not deeply enough to risk transitioning her to her crib. While a more surface part of me wants to be downstairs, soaking my eyes in the dull burn of the TV and relishing the sound of swear words, a slightly more convincing part beneath that told me to stay there in the dark. To stay beneath the sparse, secure weight of my infant daughter, keeping a steady beat with the rocking of the armchair.
As much as my ego screamed for space from the part of me that had sloughed off six months ago, my every nerve sizzled with anxiety whenever she was outside of my direct perception. She was all the best of me, carved off and unbearably vulnerable despite her terrifying strength. I was jealous of the air between us.
The floorboards creak in rhythm with the squeak of the chair's metal skeleton. The house is old: itself another threat. I'd painted Emmy's walls the same wet lilac of her hands at birth. As an apology for being poor, I wanted her room to be a cloister of softness away from the mildew and the spackle.
By day, plush rugs and pink curtains and piles of smiling, hard-eyed unicorns. By night, a spray of pastel glow-in-the-dark stars and planets scattered across the ceiling, and a white noise machine. While the glow on the ceiling gives me a hint in the darkness about the boundaries of the room, the three lights on the tiny noise machine, timing out three more hours of sound before the automatic shut-off, orient me with her crib. Now, I watch the stars, to remind myself that I exist. It's hard to keep your grip on personhood in the long, dark hours, rocking.
In the far corner, a star goes out. I only see it in my periphery. Maybe just a trick of my eyes. A gap of rods or cones or whatever it is that makes a blind spot. Still, because there's nowhere better to look, I stare at the space where I thought it was. And then just beside it, another goes out. Still, night vision is tricky. Either that, or they're falling and landing soundlessly on her fluffy rug. Odd, but maybe something to do with the humidity. This house wasn't built with climate change in mind.
Then a third. Then a fourth and fifth. They form a long streak of emptiness. The shadow grows toward one of the larger stickers, intended to represent a planet. I keep my eyes focused, narrowed, to watch as its dim phosphorescence is interrupted by a series of long, narrow stripes. Fingers. Then the shadow moves forward, and the planet is swallowed up.
I'm still rocking, syncopated with the rush of my heartbeat punching against my ribs. The hand oriented the shadow's shape under the light. Something humanoid. Two hands, two arms, too many fingers, pulling a body against the ceiling. Ponderous and heavy. Strong. It can't know I know, unless it can smell the panic in my sweat, or hear how my breath stutters. Emmy gives a pleasantly wrinkled moan as she drifts into dreaming.
The lights in the corner where it began start to blink back to life. I can't get a good sense of its size. Maybe as tall as a man, maybe taller. Sickly narrow. It's between us and the door. If I were to burst to my feet and go running, it could easily drop down on us from above. And what if I misplaced the doorknob? The extra seconds of one-handed scrabbling while Emmy screamed awake would be the end.
It's still sliding toward her crib. I wonder if it will climb inside and wait for me to unknowingly hand her into its waiting arms, or open maw. The thought enrages me. If I were nothing but a severed head, I truly believe I could overpower physiology to bite anything that threatened Emmy before acquiescing to stillness.
Her crib is in the corner between us and the door. If it gets to the ground before I move, it'll have a shorter path to us than we do to escape. Our only hope is to move now, now, and pray I don't miss the knob.
The shape of its blackness against the stars begins to disappear, one drag at a time, as it makes its way down the wall. My legs are locked, Achilles tendons pulled taut, knees calcified into place. My muscles tremble as part of me wills them to move while another part demands they stay. Once it's off the ceiling completely, I'll have no way of knowing where it is in the darkness. We must go.
Finally, my body compromises with a silent, careful push into a stand. My joints creak like the floorboards. My feet are asleep. There are no sounds to be heard over the kind roar of the white noise machine. And its silhouette is finally gone.
I shift Emmy against my chest, holding her as securely as I can without waking her. If she cries, and it hears that we're on the move, that's it. I need to get one hand free. I need to plan every move now, before I quick-twitch to a start. I look for the three lights of her noise machine, just between her crib and the door. There.
And then just two lights. Then one. Then none.
It's standing. The white noise is dampened by its back. I can hear it breathe, slow and sick. It can hear me breathe.
Emmy wails awake as I lunge forward.
Stephanie Henderson is a mother and housewife from Ohio. She was educated in part by Ohio University, but much more so by creepypasta threads on an irreputable image board throughout the bulk of the Obama administration's years.
The Click of a Spoke by Owen Townend
Raj takes a turn down Ipsen Lane. It's been a month since he last dared to get this close. Back then, he was driving the 87 bus, where the lane meets the main road. He hasn't driven at all since.
Ipsen Lane is a short footpath, too tight for most vehicles to pass through. Many in town use it as a shortcut between the bank and Chinese takeaway. It takes less than a minute to cross, but Raj can't bring himself to walk briskly, without a care. Just seeing the cobblestones jangles his nerves.
Still, he shuffles onward, breathing slowly. He checks the alcoves between buildings, expecting every door he passes to swing open suddenly. Fortunately, none of them do.
He shifts his gaze higher, fixes it on the fire escapes overhead, the drainpipes, the dirty white of the overcast morning sky. It’s almost calming, but then he stumbles. He reaches out to the nearest wall, tracing his fingers along it like a short-sighted child.
When Raj passes the halfway point marked by a flower box, he allows himself a smile. It's like his therapist said: take it slow and you'll make it to the other side. Ipsen Lane itself isn't the source of his trauma; it’s what happened on that awful afternoon.
Between breaths, he hears a click. It could be an AC unit switching on or a window blind being pulled suddenly. And yet this click doesn't quite sound like those clicks. It puts Raj in mind of a bicycle.
When a spoke clicks, it vibrates slightly, rattles in a subtle way. The noise suggests movement only halted for a moment, that it will carry on clicking soon enough.
Raj stops and glances behind him. There is nobody else on Ipsen Lane. There is nothing around that he can conceive could make that very particular click. It has to be imagined.
He curses himself. Why did he have to let the trauma cross his mind again? He is so close to a breakthrough. What a ridiculous time to spook himself.
Steadying his breath, Raj carries on. The main road ahead is unusually quiet. Too quiet. As if to meet his expectations, to fill this silence, he hears the click again.
It drags on. It rasps. It trills. That's definitely a bicycle spoke. Nothing else sounds so relentless. Except the guttural threat of some unseen beast.
Before he recognises his panic, Raj is running. The scuff and thud of his every step are loud, but the continuous clicking growls above it.
He turns again. Nothing there. And yet the phantom cyclist pursues him right to the end of the lane. Looking forward again, Raj finds himself at the edge of the main road. Winded, he tumbles off the pavement.
At last, he hears an actual vehicle. The rumble of a bus. It could be the number 87, but he doesn't look up in time. As the bus collides with him, Raj wonders if this is how the cyclist felt when he hit her, if she collapsed into the accident.
No. Raj hadn't taken due care and attention back then. He had turned the corner blind yet fast, assuming that nothing would be coming from Ipsen Lane.
One mistake was all it took. The cyclist died, and now so would the bus driver who killed her. As Raj rebounds off the bus's front, the clicking stops. The spoke is finally still.
Owen Townend is a writer of short speculative fiction and poetry inspired by thought experiment and wordplay. His work is published in anthologies from Comma Press, Oxford Flash Fiction Prize CIC, Oddity Prodigy, Ad Hoc Fiction, Bitter Leaf Books and others. He lives in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, UK.
The Needle by Eunsoo Lee
I stare at the needle bobbing up and down, up and down, up and down, as it punches holes in a straight line across the fabric. With each punch, the fabric is pulled away from my hands and under the single fang of the sewing machine. My fingers draw closer to the thin, pointed needle.
I wonder what it would be like to have the tip of my finger sucked beneath it. Down, punch, hole, up, blood, blood, blood.
Suddenly, I feel a stab in my head. When I retrieve my hand from my scalp, I see a dark red pool of blood on my palm. I rise from the chair, my bottom fizzing from sitting down for so long, and head to the bathroom. The sewing machine is still running, the needle continuing its journey down the fabric.
Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I tilt my head to the right. In that moment, blood sputters as something—or someone—comes flying out of my skull. With an explosion of red strings and shards of bones, a creature shoots into the bathroom tiles.
As it dislodges itself from the wall, I stare at the creature in amazement. Its fingernails bared, the creature approaches me. Once close enough, it digs its fingernails into my scalp and draws a long red line from the tip of my forehead to the back of my neck. Then, it probes its fingernails underneath the flesh on either side of my scalp and begins ripping the skin off of my skull, using the line it had drawn on my scalp as a guideline.
I stand bewildered as I witness myself being stripped of my own skin—the ivory skull, the hollow ribcage, the knobby knees. The skin parts easily from the bones, and the creature removes the flap of skin covering my feet as if it were peeling off my socks. My skeleton collapses onto the bathroom floor. I am now nothing but a thin slice of human meat.
The creature carries me back to my desk and sits down in front of the sewing machine. It’s still running, the needle punching holes into thin air. It has run out of fabric.
Before, my fingers had been too fat to fit into the gap between the needle and the fabric. Now, I am thin enough to glide past it easily. The creature slides me under the needle and drives me swiftly forward. A red thread oscillates under and over, under and over, under and over me.
Each time I pass under it, I am punctured by the sharp needle. Each time it digs into me, the needle sends vibrations through the human fabric I have become. Thump, thump, thump, the up-and-down motion of the needle is synchronized with my heart. I feel a tiny heartbeat at the tips of my fingers. My fingers. My fingers. My fingers? Have I grown hands again? No, they have always been here.
I look down. Both of my hands are on—or, rather, in—the sewing machine. My fingers are folded and twisted and mangled at impossible angles. Red thread drizzles down my wrists. All the while, the sewing machine continues running, the needle and my heartbeat synced in their rhythmic thumping.
With each thump, the needle digs deeper and deeper into the human fabric.
Eunsoo Lee is a creative spirit from Seoul, South Korea, who kindles a deep love for the surreal and comically horrendous. She has participated in the Iowa Young Writers' Studio, The Kenyon Review's Young Writers Workshop, Sewanee Winterim, Juniper Online, and more. Many of her pieces are products of her uncontrollable stream of consciousness and randomest daydreams.
A Monster Hunter's Final Exam by Adrienne Rex
Question 1: Wood Sprites do not harm humans. This means if you come across a colony, you may leave them be.
A) True
B) False
Correct answer: B. While Wood Spites themselves are harmless, their presence usually attracts more dangerous creatures. If you come across wood sprites, it is best to destroy the colony entirely.
Question 2: You are hunting a hellhound, which has already killed a man. His wife witnessed the attack and spoke to you of a creature with glowing red eyes. What should you tell her to do?
A) Tell her to try to forget the incident.
B) Tell her to take her story to the local police.
C) Inform her that she is right and the creature was not natural, but you are handling the situation.
D) Tell her she must be recalling details incorrectly and urge her to think again.
Correct answer: D. Under no circumstances should you reveal the existence of monsters to civilians. Your mission cannot be compromised. Civilians who witness monster attacks can usually be persuaded and made to remember different events.
Question 3: A vampire has taken a man hostage in a small, remote cabin at midnight. Select the best course of action from the choices below.
A) Wait until sunrise to storm the cabin.
B) Attempt to shoot the vampire through one of the cabin windows from a distance.
C) Storm the cabin immediately to save the hostage as soon as possible.
D) Lob burning bulbs of garlic into the windows to smoke out the vampire.
Correct answer: A. As a hunter, you must be careful and prioritize your own life when necessary. The enemy only must win one fight; you must win thousands. In a remote cabin with nowhere to go, the vampire will be trapped once the sun rises. You are to ignore the threat posed to hostages, however difficult.
Question 4: You are hunting a werewolf on the full moon. Which of the following would be the best bait to attract the creature?
A) A dead animal
B) A live animal
C) A live human
D) A dead human
Correct answer: C. While animal flesh is an acceptable substitute under a short time constraint, human bait is considered widely superior. Do not attempt to procure your own bait. The Federation of Monster Hunters will provide such resources to you when you are assigned to a hunt.
Question 5: You come across an individual who you believe to be possessed by a demon. Which of the following methods will prove the possession with certainty?
A) Apply holy water to the skin of the individual and wait for an adverse reaction.
B) Shine a light into the eyes of the individual and see if the pupils contract into slits.
C) Check if the individual smells strongly of sulfur, blood, or iron.
D) Force the individual to walk on consecrated soil and see if they can keep themselves upright.
E) None of the above
Correct answer: E. While the above-listed methods help identify a possessed individual, demons are notoriously hard to diagnose. Even if an individual passes the above tests but is still suspected of possession, you should exterminate the possible threat. Demons cannot be allowed to walk among us.
Question 6: You can always trust other humans to help complete your mission.
A) True
B) False
Correct answer: B. Civilians, law enforcement, and other people may stand as obstacles to you completing your assignment. They will not understand your duty and, therefore, possibly interfere. While your focus should be on the mission, do not allow such obstacles to jeopardize your hunt. Contact The Federation of Monster Hunters for assistance in dealing with such issues.
Question 7: Why is your position necessary?
A) Because the world is full of horrible creatures that would do harm.
B) Because that which is unnatural should be corrected.
C) Because no one else will do this.
D) All of the above
Correct answer: D.
Question 8: You are prepared to do what must be done?
A) True
B) False
Correct answer: A. You will be a hero.
Question 9: You are prepared to make any and every sacrifice for the good of humanity?
A) True
B) False
Correct answer: A. Never question whether what you’re doing is right.
Question 10: You accept your task?
A) True
B) False
Correct answer: A. You have no other choice.
Calculating your score…
Congratulations! You have passed your examination.
Go make the world a better, safer place.
Adrienne Rex is an aspiring author from Houston Texas. When she’s not making her daydreams pay rent (otherwise known as writing), she’s drawing, reading, or being dragged around by her dog on what may charitably be called a walk. Her work has been published by the Moonstone Arts Center, Gabby and Min’s Literary Review, and Dug Up Magazine. You can find her here: https://adrienne-rex-writes.carrd.co/
Nemophilia by J.J. Hillard
Louring clouds, gray and spent, spread low over a cluster of rustic bungalows near Goll Woods. This is Nemophilia. It means ‘woodland loving,’ referring to a wellness retreat that visitors can reach by driving a narrow rural road from Detroit that runs through the Great Black Swamp.
Early this morning, close to its austere headquarters building, Cyril ‘Tsering’ Reynolds opens the gate of a wooden plank pigpen. In his seventies, lanky, with a white ponytail, dressed in dungarees and a red felt hat, he’s a 1960s hippie-era survivor and manager of this alternative health spa. Tsering whispers Tibetan phrases while directing the rotund, sleepy swine with light taps from a pole. A lantern dangles midway along its length, its candlelight illuminates a muddy footpath. Ahead of him and his drift of pink pigs is a darksome forest of ancient trees.
“Next week we reopen for visitors,” he tells them. “Time for a treasure hunt, my friends. Prizes have arisen since yesterday’s rain. We must find them.”
They enter a primeval wildwood where remnants of a recent shower drip from the twisted trunks and tattered leaves of old-growth oaks. Beams of moonlight slant through tree branches. Tsering’s swine, snouts aquiver, poke and probe the moldy humus. At a distance in the undergrowth, there are scuttling sounds of unseen animals.
“Oh look, an oyster!” Tsering plucks a fluted, pink coralline mushroom outgrowth from a log. He nibbles on it. “Let’s get busy, my little snoots, rout those gems. What’d you find there, sweet Zerdan?”
From the squealing jaws of a large pig, Tsering pries a lumpy prize, a black truffle. He adds it to the cloth pouch at his waist. “Please stay mindful of our mission.”
Tsering’s alerted to a preternatural sense of being under observation. He looks around, glances overhead. Above, reclining on an oak branch is Asura Hirudo. Of indeterminate age, Hirudo is shrouded in a hooded cape woven from leaves. Darkness shadows his face like an eclipse.
Tsering bows deeply. “Asura Hirudo! You… you surprised me.”
Hirudo stares down at Tsering with eyes that pierce all pretense. “Can you discern what I treasure most about these woods on a morning like this?” His voice is deep, textured with authority. “It is the reassurance I receive from all this rot and rain. Fluid is the essence of everything and everyone alive. I am in my element here, Tsering.” He pulls a clump of moss from a branch and squeezes it like a sponge. Water dribbles into his mouth.
Tsering clasps his hands together in supplication. “My deepest apologies... for not identifying any talented supplicants for you this past season.”
“Unlike yours, my devoted Tsering, my time is boundless. Your mission, the critical quest you accepted, is to identify those with paranormal proclivities from among your guests. Remember, you belong here… and to me… always.”
“Please, sir... I’ll redouble my efforts.”
“No threat is implied, but you cannot expect to live forever. I have conjured up a new, more compelling batch of my Reînnoire restorative for the benefit of your next guests. Once consumed, it should make them more willing and more compliant to my plans.” His cloak of leaves rustles as Hirudo floats from the branch down to the forest floor, in seeming defiance of gravity. “But enough of that, who is your most discerning cochon truffle this morning?”
“That would be Zerdan.” Tsering points to the largest swine. “He’s already found four large truffles… and eaten two of them.”
“Ah, so his flesh and blood will have a fungal flavor. Excellent. You may remove yourself, now.” Hirudo lays his hand on Zerdan, who sits back on his haunches as if by command.
“Perhaps another of my pigs would be more suitable for your–"
“A sample from your most discerning pig is my preference. You will get Zerdan back later. Or would you prefer to make it more... personal?”
“No.” Tsering recoils at the thought. “I’m sorry. As you wish.” With pole taps as he urges his herd away.
“You must stay mindful of our mission,” Hirudo says, “to entice more acolytes.”
Tsering nods, ducks behind a tree, then peeks back.
Kneeling beside the compliant boar, Hirudo rubs one of its ears between his long, bony fingers. The animal grows calm, motionless. He presses his lips to its ear as if to whisper, then bites down, hard.
Blood oozes swiftly and angrily from the wound, though the pig registers no objection. With loud sucking sounds, Hirudo laps up the dark ruby fluid as if desiccated from a desert trek. He wastes not a single drop.
Tsering winces. He shuffles his pig troupe along hurriedly in the damp humus to put more distance between himself and the subject of his complicity. They sink and slide downslope toward Nemophilia in the distance.
J. J. Hillard is a Northern California writer of fiction and non-fiction stories, many of which are inspired by his personal experiences and travels. He enjoys chronicling the changes in human behavior and social relationships that result from advances in science and technology.