First published in CommuterLit in April, 2022

“Now I warn you, you don’t want to enter that house over there,” the man said, pointing to the village house across the lane.

He was barefoot and bare-chested; white stubble covered his cheeks and chin. His khaki shorts were held up by a piece of string. He had come out into his front yard and was addressing the young mother with a baby in a sling who was standing in the dappled shade of the trees bordering the lane. She wore leggings and Adidas and her hair was pulled up in a high ponytail. She was taking pictures using a borrowed Canon R5 of a broken-down house obscured by a wilderness of trees. 

“I’ve lived in this village a long time.” The man scratched the mat of white hair on his chest. Then, thrusting his thumbs in his belt loops, he began, “and I know a thing or two. Some years ago a merchant lived right there in that house with his three grown daughters after he lost his wife. It is now a ruin but once it was surrounded by a well-tended garden with jasmine and frangipani and fruit trees. A grove of coconut palms stretched on either side.”

The woman turned to him abruptly. “Do you know if I may go into the house? I want to take some pictures of the inside.” 

“Wait till you hear my story,” the man replied. “You see that well there?” He asked pointing to something hidden by creepers and brambles. “A solitary coconut palm once stood near it. The merchant had come across a great big sealed jar in his travels. He planned to place the jar near the well, but his workmen accidentally cracked open the seal and some shadowy thing, light as an exhaled breath, flew out.”

The woman looked at him skeptically, as if questioning how he could have known this. 

Raising his hand, the man continued, “I’m just telling you that which is common knowledge in our village. The two older sisters ran the household for the father and supervised the cleaning and cooking. Girls, after all, are borrowed wealth…”

The woman rolled her eyes.

Ignoring her, the man continued. “Sooner or later they marry and adorn their husbands’ homes. That is what Leela, the oldest sister, did. Even though she was big-boned and lisped, the lucky girl married a rich man and moved to a village twenty miles from here. Shortly after, when she became pregnant, she returned to her father’s house to be near her family during the confinement. That was when they first heard, from time to time, late at night, a thumping outside. At first the sounds were faint, then hard to ignore. 

“Thump, Wumpf! Thump, Wumpf!  It sounded as though someone was pounding the earth with a club, or bouncing on a demoniac pogo stick. 

‘“Do you hear that?”’ the girls asked each other. 

‘“It’s must be the factory,”’ the second daughter, Neela said. Now, Neela had long beautiful curly hair that she could sit on. She had a dreamy absent look, and she was always reading romantic novels.

‘“Factories are closed on Sunday night!”’ said the youngest daughter, Sheela who always wore bell-shaped earrings, and her cheeks dimpled prettily when she smiled. But don’t be deceived, that one was a firecracker.

“The second time they heard the sound, the girls flew to the window. Stars twinkled in the sky, but there was no one outside.‘“Do you hear that sound, Father?”’ they asked. 

“The merchant was puzzled. ‘“ What nonsense you talk!”’ He said. ‘“I hear nothing. It’s just the fanciful imagination of you ladies.’” 

‘“Don’t include me, father”’ Sheela said, dimpling prettily.

“One night Leela had to use the privy. Dense darkness covered everything. She set out holding a lantern and was halfway down the sandy trail through the mango grove that led to the outhouse, but then she changed her mind and hitched up her skirts and crouched under the coconut tree. Immediately, she heard something slithering down the trunk followed by the thunderous sound of dead palm fronds being dragged at tremendous speed. The girl hastily straightened her skirt to cover her rump. Looking around in the light of her lantern, there was no one. 

“She made her way back to her room and found fiery red ants circling her bed. Shortly after, a daughter was born to her. One day when she was playfully tossing the baby up in the air and catching her, she saw a shadow. She panicked and the baby hit the floor screaming. The child was always a little soft in the head after that.”

The woman pulled her baby a little closer.

The man fished a tin of snuff from his pocket and took a pinch in each nostril. “Now where was I? Ah, yes, the second daughter, Neela,” he continued. “She married a professor and moved to the same village as her older sister. When she became pregnant she arrived home for the confinement as her older sister had done before her. She lived in a room jutting out the side of the house with an entrance by an outside staircase. It was her habit to wash her long curly hair on Sundays with soap nut powder and sit with a book under the coconut palm while her hair dried in the sunlight streaming through the palm fronds. Late one night as she lay sleeping she heard it. 

“Thump, Wumpf! Thump, Wumpf! 

“At times the footfalls were right outside the front door. Within moments they were distant, as far away as the fields and beyond, and then again they came closer and closer, up the wooden stairs until they were right outside her door.
“Neela listened, lying on her bed sweating, her throat frozen. Early the next morning her water broke. I don’t know much about all this, but my wife used these expressions. My wife who is now no more, God rest her soul. Neela too, gave birth but, alas, the girl that was born had no heartbeat.”

Looking at the ground, the man shook his head sorrowfully. Then turning to the pony-tailed young lady, he continued. 

“Now, there was only Sheela who had just turned seventeen, a vivid little creature, small and vibrant as a hummingbird and smart as a button, with her bell-shaped earrings dangling and her cheeks dimpling.” 

The old man smiled dreamily. “A fire-cracker, I told you, and she was no domestic goddess, just like the rest of you modern young ladies, and though she loved her father, she could scarcely keep house for him. 

“Still, that year a traveling troupe of actors visited the village. The merchant was a generous man and he offered the troupe lodgings in his home. The theater company cook fed everyone sumptuously. In return, the merchant and Sheela could see their play as often as they wished. Sheela appeared in the front row at every show, and one day she twined herself around the leading man and kissed him right under the coconut palm. When the troupe left the village she was nowhere to be found, for she had run away with the actor. 

“But within a year Sheela was back at her father’s door, with a belly round as a watermelon. 
“‘…throw her out on the street for bringing shame on the family,’” the merchant’s friends said. 

“This fell upon Sheela’s ears. She felt a rush of blood. ‘“I’ll teach them,”’ she said, shaking her raised fist, ‘“I am going to be the queen of the silver screen. Just you wait!”’ 

The young mother’s pony tail bobbed in excitement when she heard those words.

The man continued, pleased by the interest that his little tidbit had generated. “Yes, ‘Queen of the silver screen,’ nothing less! The father invited Leela and Neela, the two older sisters to come take care of the youngest sister. They steered Sheela to a dim back chamber at the end of a long passage to hide her from visitors and cruel wagging tongues. 

“Months passed, and one night Sheela called the other two. Their father had set off early that morning for a town twelve miles distant and he had not yet returned. Shadows leapt up the wall as the sisters went down the long passage with their lanterns. We didn’t have electricity then. No electricity, no computer, no telephone, no fancy cameras.” The man said, appraising the camera hanging from the young woman’s shoulder.

“Sheela’s lips were dry and chapped. “’Get me a knife,”’ she whispered. Sweat beaded her upper lip. 

“The older sisters ran to get a knife. 

From far away came a familiar sound. Sheela rose from her bed and picked up a rock from under her pillow and it whizzed out of the window. ‘“Go away, you!”’ she yelled, ‘“I’m not afraid of you!”’ 

“All was silent for a bit, then,  Thump, Wumpf! Thump… You should never anger these spirits. The footfalls sounded giddily triumphant as they pranced closer and closer, faster and faster. They almost seemed to be dancing a jig. 

“After turning up the wick on the kerosene lantern, and instructing Sheela to bolt her door from inside, the two older sisters scurried through the house locking doors and windows and barricading the front door with the crossbar. 

‘“Do you think she’s due?”’ Neela whispered to Leela.

‘“Naw,”’ Leela replied, ‘“thhee lookth far too comfortable. Leth go to bed and thleep a little.’”

“But, alone in her chamber, Sheela was moaning and tossing and turning all through the night. Her bedclothes lay in a heap. The lantern wick threw a weak sputtering light and a large shadow on the wall. 

“The thumping stopped. A smoky shape like fog on water rose up; it towered higher than the house. It hovered briefly under the languid moon. Then swirling down like a corkscrew it passed over the threshold like spilled milk. Some villagers say like spilled blood. Then the shape rose and slowly glided down the long rambling passage to the heavy wooden door to Sheela’s chamber—and slipped underneath. 

“An hour after midnight, the house shook with a blood-curdling shriek. I tell you, even my wife woke up. Terrified, she put her arms around my neck and snuggled up to me.”

The man took another pinch of snuff. He sneezed loudly and wiped his nose with a large dirty, handkerchief that he pulled from the same pocket that held the snuff-box.

“So what was I saying? Yes, the two sisters had been sleeping like ogres, for they had been working hard all day. The scream woke them up. They looked at each other, their hearts pounding in their breasts. They lurched down the passage with their lanterns. They saw bloody footsteps all along the passage and bloody handprints on the wall. It took them some time to batter the door down (before realizing it had only been locked from the outside). They burst in. ‘“What happened, what happened?”’ they cried.

“But there was no one there. Then they heard it. A faint mewling sound came from the bed, and hidden in the bedclothes they discovered a tiny infant, flailing. He was bloody but alive! The sisters were wonderstruck. When Neela, the middle sister, opened her arms and cradled the infant to her breast, she never wanted to let him go. Leela hurried to the kitchen to get hot water. Momentarily, they forgot all about Sheela. 

“When the father finally arrived towards dawn, he sent out search parties. They called her name, but Sheela was gone. The grief-stricken father eventually left our village to be with his two older daughters and grandson--and look at this place now,” the man said, pointing to the house and shaking his head in despair.

“So, I’m telling you as I tell all the young people who visit our village of late, looking for some famous actress or some such nonsense: Don’t go there! 

“And this is what I warn young mothers like you. If at midday on a Sunday, you happen to visit the well and gaze too long at your reflection in the water, a wan face will suddenly appear under the water staring up at you with a faint smile. It is Sheela with her bell-shaped earrings. “‘Have you seen my child?’” she whispers. Don’t look. Her eyes will cast a spell.” The man pointed to the baby in the sling. “Just hold tight to your child and run.”

When he finished his narrative, the old man was a little peeved that the young woman had been ignoring him. She had been taking pictures from different angles. She turned around and faced him. “I just need a few close-ups of the house and the interior,” she said.

The old man yawned, stretching his arms overhead. “Don’t say that I didn’t warn you,” he remarked, before sauntering off towards his dwelling.

“The story you told me is not true!” The woman called out to his retreating figure.  

The shadows were now lengthening. Stillness enveloped everything. A leafy bough of one of the trees bordering the merchant’s garden began to shake violently even though there was no wind. The young mother stepped back, clutching her baby. 

“Look!” she cried, addressing the now absent old man. Brandishing a picture she had pulled out of her pocket, she said, “You cannot frighten me. I have watched her movies and read about her on the Internet. The youngest daughter, Sheela, as you call her, is alive and thriving. That is why I have come all the way from the big city to this godforsaken village, to do research on her early life. Sheela became a famous movie star who played brave heroines. And though she never acknowledged it, I am certain that she is none other than the fearless Hemalata, the reigning queen of the silver screen.”  

Her words echoed in the empty lane. The baby started to whimper. The mother sat on the stone steps leading to the merchant’s house and began to nurse her. “There, there, Sweetie. Just a few more pictures and tomorrow we’ll be back home, okay? Mommy has to work.” she cooed.

Then settling the baby in her sling, she started up the steps along the darkening pathway to the merchant’s house.


Ravibala Shenoy has published award-winning short stories (India Currents), short stories (Chicago Quarterly Review, Best Asian Speculative Fiction, The Superstition Review, Copperfield Review, ), flash fiction (Jellyfish Review, Brilliant Flash Fiction,The Menacing Hedge. The Aerogram), memoir (Sugar Mule, Funny Pearls, Borderless Journal) and op-ed pieces (Chicago Tribune, India Currents). 
​

     “This truly is the golden age for our kind,” Richard says raising his wine glass to his companions. His shimmering needle teeth glistening from the candlelight. “The covid pandemic has been a blessing of unparalleled prosperity. Cheers to you, my friends and family!”
     The dozen guests in attendance erupt in applause. Their glasses clink together dashing crimson wine across the dining table adding red stains to the white table cloth. The thin, nearly translucent, material barely conceal the shapely mounds hidden beneath.
     “Tonight, my friends,” Richard’s voice bellows across the room. He wraps an arm around his wife, gazing into her gorgeous green eyes. “Tonight, we brought you all together to propose a simple proposition.”
     “Get on with it,” a voice shouts from the far end of the table, “some of us are hungry over here.”
     A wave of laughter echoes through the room. Richard chortles to himself and holds up his hand.
     “That’s why we brought you here tonight, brother,” he speaks while holding out his hands in offering, staring into each pair of green eyes in turn. “It’s time humanity learns their true station in this world, and we must regain our place at the top of the food chain. It is time we leave the shadows!”
     Servants pulled back the sheets from the table revealing eight nude humans bound and gagged: Two adult men, two adult women, an elderly couple and a pair of adolescents. Their eyes were filled with wild terror, but not an ounce of resistance flowed through their drugged veins.
     The guests’ glowing eyes blink at the buffet in astonishment while each of their jaws extend downward instinctively, salivating with feverish intent. The pulse from their collective heartbeat reverberates through the ether: it’s their death song, long forgotten but always part of their being. They crawl about the table on all fours poking, probing and inspecting for their preferred choice of meat.
     “Never again will we hunt for what is ours by right,” Richard declares to his entranced guests. “Our time is now!”
     The cacophony of flesh being torn apart, blood gushing and bones breaking fill Richard with ecstasy. He licks his lips and clings to his calm exterior with cruel desperation. He is not willing to stoop to the animalistic ferocity of his kind.
     “Shall we check on the girl, my love?” His wife’s serene voice brushes the madness aside. She kisses him lightly in the cheek and rests her head in his shoulder.
     “Yes, Sophia,” he responds while combing her jet-black hair with his fingers. “It’s time for our daughter to see the world.”
                                                                                      ***
     Despite the heat of the room and the luxurious Sherpa blanket wrapped around her turtled figure, the girl shivers as if abandoned in the artic tundra. The fever had boiled through her veins for three days; in which time, she had not been offered food and she found the sight of water repulsive. Her eyes, in constant flux between yellow and green, flitter anxiously through the darkness with perfect night vision. 
     She hisses into the blanket at the sound of the door’s deadbolt grinding open. Her eyes squint to see through the blinding light bleeding into the room. Two black shapes manifest with a sweet, metallic aroma of fresh blood stuck to their clothing. Her stomach churns with unconscious desire.
     Sophia’s ivory hand sweeps matted hair off the girl's forehead and tucks it neatly behind her ear. “It’s alright child, you’re safe now,” her angelic voice gently sang. “We’ve come to set you free.”
     Tension melts from the girl’s body and she slumps her head against the cool hand. “I’m just so tired … so hungry,” she whispers in a raspy voice. Her vision blurs with tears. “I want to go home.”
     “Of course, Emily,” Sophia coos softly. “You were in quite the state when we found you. Now that you’re feeling better, we can have our driver take you anywhere you wish.”
     “I think,” Emily pauses to clear her throat. “I think I'd prefer to walk. Get some fresh air,” she said coyly, blood pumping through her heart like dry cement.
     “Of course, dear.” Sophia stood and helped Emily climb to her feet. “Michael is waiting for you in the hall. He will see you out.” 
     She gazed deep into Emily’s eyes to see her own serene smile in the reflection. Sophia pulls up the girl’s hoodie and adjusts the crinkled facemask into its proper position. She wraps her arms around the girl in a loving embrace. “Be safe,” she whispers and gesture to the door. 
     Emily nods and hurries out the room without a word. 
     Richard envelops his wife from behind and nuzzles his face into her neck. “Our girl is flying the coup,” he says, melancholy flows through his voice.
     “I wish I could be there for her when she completes her transformation,” Sophia says in a monotone voice.
     “Instinct will take over,” he reassures Sophia, “and her first kill will signal the end for the human race.”
     “I’m suddenly feeling peckish,” she says, twisting around to kiss her husband.
     “I could eat,” a smirk crept across his face.
                                                                                      ***
     Emily tucks her head down and swims through the cluster of drunk men. They sneer and laugh while spewing clouds of nicotine. Paws grope, tug and squeeze.
     She recedes into the shadow of her hoodie. Her piercing green eyes are cat-like and hungry. They shine with desperation above her pandemic facemask.
     “Hey, where you going sweet-heart?” A bearded man blocks her way. Stale beer seeps out of his pores. His predatory grin gives her the once over.
     “Excuse me,” she says meekly.
     He side-steps and says, “No-no-no. That won’t do.” He reaches out for her face. “Let’s see what's hiding under that mask.” A boisterous laugh rolls of out of his barrel chest. His friends cheer and urge him on.
     Emily stands transfixed. Her heart pounds against her rib cage while her pupils elongate into slits. Beneath the mask, a cheshire grin is revealed to be enveloped by decaying flesh. The smile cracks open to spew forth rows of perforated daggers. 
     Carnage splatters the faces of astonished bystanders. Emily tears out the man’s vocal chords: his scream morphs into a gurgle. He clings to his friends’ arms for life, but he’s dragged to the cold, dead earth.
Ecstasy fills Emily and she drinks deep from the still flailing corpse. The revolting sound of slurping and suction drowns out the shrieks of terror. Her marble skin deflects pounding fists and stomping feet. Blue and red lights bounce off the crimson streaked faces of horrified men new to learn they’re simply cattle.
​     The world changes as a fading pulse ripples across pooling blood.



Travis was born and raised on the Canadian Prairies where he works as a professional brewer in the craft beer industry. He graduated from the BA English program at the University of Regina where he focused on creative writing. He occasionally finds himself writing short fiction exploring the nightmares and horrors hiding just out of sight. You can find his other works in Schlock! Webzine, and horror anthologies from Gravestone Press and Hellbound Books. Of course, all of this is possible because of the support of his wonderful wife, Janelle, and beautiful daughter, Emma.

     

     “Is… Is that you, Michael?”
     The sickly, shaky voice came from a pale husk of a man lying on a hospital bed in front of me. I hadn’t noticed how much weight he’d lost up until now, how old he’d gotten. It seemed like he’d aged overnight, but it wasn’t so. The cancer had been eating him from within for years now, insidiously, until one day there hadn’t been enough of him to stand upright. He just went working, never once complaining about pain or anything else, until the moment he collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital.

     It was his voice that got to me. My father’s voice used to be like a force of nature. Whether he used it to sing or sway a potential customer, or for something less benign, such as cursing and shouting at me or mom, it had always been so powerful, so… indisputable.
     Now, machines beeped and sighed, as if to punctuate his feeble attempt at talking.
     The man that came to Plano with only a shirt on his back and managed to build a small empire just by his blood, sweat and tears, now laid on a hospital bed, pissing himself and not recognizing his own son. But maybe it was because the son was not worth recognizing.
     “No, dad, it’s… It’s me, it’s Dave.”
     “Oh… Where… Where is Michael?”
     “He couldn’t come. He had something he had to do.”
     Dad coughed weakly.
     “Oh, of course. He has… He has a lot to think about. His projects and the press… He’s doing a lot of important work, you know?”
     “I know, dad,” I answered. But then, I couldn’t refrain myself and adding. “He had more important things to do.”
     It went on the same way the second time he had woken up after chemo. And the third… But after the fifth time, he stopped asking for Michael. I couldn’t help it. I gloated.
     Michael called on FaceTime occasionally, but most of the time it was when dad was out of it and couldn’t talk.
     “How is he?” he inquired, with a worried look on his perfectly symmetrical face, framed by dark, conditioned locks.
     “Come and see yourself,” is what I wanted to say, but I stopped myself. It was not the time for being snide. No, I had to play my cards right.
     “Bad. It’s… Pretty bad. He’s stable, but the state of him… It’s hard to watch. He’s lost weight, and hair, and.. The smell… It’s hard keeping your lunch down. It’s sad, really sad, I tell ya. It’s sad to remember him like this… What a man he was…”
     I thought of everything I could do to deter my older brother from coming. Since he had little will to come in the first place, it wasn’t a particularly hard task. The poor sap suspected nothing. So sure of the fact that his position of a sole heir was set in stone, he never even considered the implications of my role as a guardian-nurse. And I used every one of those moments to implant whispers of doubt into dad’s ears. Also, my role in his firm shifted from helper/desk clerk to an acting director; neither of us was happy about it, but at least dad was grateful. He loved his company more than he loved me, anyway.
     Eventually, the hospital bills began ramping up, and the economically sound solution was to move dad home. And that’s what I did. The kids were somewhat distraught at first, but, being children, they soon stopped thinking about it and went back to their Pokémons and school assignments. Manny was of huge help, a real Samaritan wife, changing his diapers and IV drips, feeding and bathing him. She never complained, not once. I knew why, but I never mentioned it. Dad needed all the saints he could get right now, even the false ones.
     It was the one thing I had that Michael did not: a family. A home, Christian home, with a wife and two children. Dad always spoke highly about the sanctity of family, and how it was the single most important thing in any man’s life. When Michael broke one engagement after another, he always said: “It’s ok. He’s just looking for the right one. He’ll get married come springtime, mark my words!”. But springtimes and girlfriends came and went, and Michael still never married. My family didn’t matter as long as Mike’s was right around the corner, but now, suddenly, my family was all my dad had. And he quickly began to realize that. At the same time, I realized how big of a hypocritical sack of shit he was.
     When he was of clear mind, my father spoke to me with genuine affection for the first time in my (and his) life. He praised my life choices, my choice of wife (he finally forgave me for marrying a Mexican woman), saying that he was sorry about the way he always put me second, and that he was wrong for giving his all to Mike, when, in the end, he turned out to be so self-centered and uncaring. That was what he said when he was lucid. But he also spoke sometimes while feverish or under sedation. And then, he sang quite a different tune. Not knowing where he was or what time period he was in, he would laugh and curse. 
     “Good boy, Michael, my son, good boy! Go and travel and fuck and drink champagne and eat caviar! Fly high, my boy, fly high! Oh, how I wish I did the same, instead of marrying that horse-faced bitch who shat out nothing but ball and chain from her cunt! Oh, what I could’ve done, if only I didn’t marry! Instead of living the high-life, I have to spend every day watching my younger kid waste away into mediocracy, soiling my genes with a… wetback wife!”
     Since hearing that, I no longer looked up to my father. Since then, I shifted all the enmity I had for my brother towards him, adding more on top. Since then, I started openly hating him. And my resolve for what I planned to do only hardened.
     The smell of death and sickness soon started spreading through the house, going through the wooden pores, replacing all others. It reminded me of something from my childhood, back from when we still lived on the outskirts of town. I had a memory, a vague one, from when I couldn’t have been more than four years old, of dad coming home with a run-down hearse in tow.
     “It was just lying there, by the road! There are some good parts in there! And I did the city a favor by getting rid of it!”
     It was the beginning of his new business, one that eventually made him, and by proxy, us, relatively well-off. Soon, more wrecks came to join the first one. Dad stripped them for parts which he sold first from under his trench-coat and through anonymous ads, then on the internet, and lastly from his own local store. The skeleton of that hearse lay in our yard for years on, gradually disappearing, one metal bone after another. By the time we moved, it was all gone.
     But I could never forget the way it smelled, or radiated perhaps. I didn’t even know what a hearse was back then, nor what death was exactly, but I knew that there was something wrong about that car.
But that was an old, half-forgotten memory. The smell in the house reminded me more of another affair, one much more recent and pressing. The damned, and I mean damned literally, the Malaby extension.
     When my father’s business started picking up, some five or six years ago, he began thinking that one little store in the suburbs wasn’t enough, that he needed to start thinking big. He invested all of his savings into prime real-estate, a spacious site in a popular zone, right on the corner of Capital Avenue, where he planned to open a brand-new fancy car-part dealership. He was so into the idea we hardly even saw him. When we finally did see him, he said that the business is currently on hold, as he had to sign some contracts and get some permissions from the city council, but that it would be ready for a grand-opening any day. I actually bought a bottle of expensive champagne and put it on ice that afternoon.
     But the contracts and permissions never went through. It wasn’t a big deal, as his old shop was still making money, but it seemed that every month there was something new that prevented the opening of his new store. Eventually, he decided to put the whole project on hold, and that the best way to use the newly bought property was as a storage room for the old and new wares that had piled up over the years.
     That’s when the nightmare began. And that’s when he got sick, as we later found out.
     It started as a phone call on a slow afternoon. Someone noticed that the lock on the shutter of the new store was broken, and somehow found out that dad was the owner.
     “God-damn piece-of-shit town… Come here boy, you need to drive me, my pickup’s in the shop.”
     True enough, the lock was broken, obviously forced; the shutters themselves were lifted about two feet from the ground. Something assaulted my nostrils, a sickly-sweet smell of rot. If it hadn’t been broad daylight on a relatively busy junction, I mightn't have dared to go in. But my dad was unshrinking, his rage carried him forward with a fiery step. He lifted the shutters. 
      The stench drove over us like a steamroller of death.
    “Oh, what the fuck…” he mumbled, lifting the back of his hand to his nose. But he still proceeded inside. I had no choice but to follow.
    We quickly realized that there were several people occupying the premises. Men and women, of different ages and skin color lay, sat, or leaned against the walls and boxes. One thing they had in common?… a lack of personal hygiene: the whole place stunk to high heaven. The floor was also packed: sleeping bags, plastic bags, duffel bags. Assorted garbage. Needles. Feces. It didn’t seem that anything was missing, though; all the boxes were still neatly packed, with the plastic sheets still over them, collecting dust and greasy fingerprints.
     “Who… Who are you people? What the hell are you doing in my store? Get the fuck outta here, you bums! You losers! Git!” My dad raged.
     Some of them began waddling out, without saying a word. But some of them, mostly the ones on the ground, didn’t move. My dad kicked the nearest bundle savagely. There was no reaction. It was like kicking a bag of sand.
     “Don’t you hear me, you junkie fuck? I said, get up!”
     “Dad,” I said, “I think this guy’s dead.”
     We called the police. Altogether, there were four deceased on the property; the living had dispersed before the boys in blue arrived. The detective assigned to the case wanted to know who these people were, and what they were doing here, but dad outshouted him, threatened to sue the city for incompetence, as well as at least ten other things. When he asked them about what they were planning to do to prevent such things from repeating, a black, uniformed officer said: “Man, just get a better lock.”
     And that’s what we did.
   The autopsy showed that all four of the people had died from, to put it simply, natural causes: one overdose, one cardiac arrest, and two from previously sustained injuries. One of them, a middle-aged man, had half of a steering wheel lodged in his chest. How he even managed to get to dad’s store was a mystery. Anyway, since there was no evidence of a crime, and none of the people were in any way connected to our family (all of them were vagrants from different states, it appeared), there was no investigation. At that time, we accepted this as a good thing.
     About a week later, it all happened again. Everyone was pissed: dad, neighbors, the authorities... A new, even stronger lock was installed.
   “You need a better security system”, said the same cop. I don’t even like to remember what dad answered him.
     After the third time, dad installed an industrial strength lock; we found it cut by an industrial strength tool ten days later. Only two dead people were inside this time.
     “Someone’s out to get me! This is a set up! Well, I won’t be bullied! They can suck on a lemon! I don’t have time to waste on this, I need four more contracts signed! Listen, Dave, if anyone calls again, just ignore them. I don’t want to know anything unless something gets stolen, do you hear me?”
     After that, he left for Dallas and I didn’t see him for months. The calls still came in, their message the same. I did my best to ignore them.
   Soon, the local news crews got a whiff of the story. The store place was nicknamed “Damnation domicile”, and for a while it was the talk of the town. Our family name got dragged through the media mud, and I even got approached by a Hollywood director who wanted to buy the rights to make a horror movie out of it. These days I didn’t dare turn on the TV for fear my kids would hear some gruesome news pertaining to their family.
     “Don’t you pay no mind,” dad said over the line. “When I’m finished with this, I’ll come pick up Michael. He’ll know how to deal with it. He’s smart, he’s got the know-how! Even more important, he’s connected!”
     I knew exactly how Michael planned to deal with it: the same way I’d planned. The only difference was that Michael hoped to get his inheritance soon; he had expected that dad would get tired of the rat race and retire early, somewhere in Florida perhaps. I knew better, and I knew that no one would get any kind of inheritance before the old trooper was dead and buried. I just didn’t know how soon it would all happen.
     I got a call one day, from a stranger, saying my dad was unwell. I didn’t take it seriously; I just thought that he had a sunstroke or low blood sugar or something like that. But the clinic was positive in its negativity: it was The Big C, no doubt about it. Spread its deadly tentacles all through the poor man. The doctor suggested chemo…
                                                                                  ***
     Since hearing him say all those disgusting things about mom and us in his sleep, I started growing some nasty thoughts of my own. I wanted to punish him somehow. I started thinking about making the rest of his life even more miserable, and sometimes, when I got particularly angry, I fantasized about just smothering him with a pillow while he slept. It would be so easy, I thought, and no one would ever find out. They’d wheel him out, just like one of the corpses from his store. But I never got the chance to fulfill any of my malevolent fantasies. The old bastard died calmly in his sleep, head full of opioid dreams. Manny found him while doing her morning round. She just closed his eyes, climbed down the stairs, sighed, and said: “It is over. He is gone.”
     Michael came by the first flight. He acted sad and distraught, tie hanging loose and hair in disarray, but I could see him checking the calendar on his phone and turning corners to make calls every chance he had. No one cared about his charade, no more than about dad’s death. As soon as he realized this, he dropped the act.
     The funeral and all about it were a haze. Michael and me invited people, paid the bills, organized the catering, did everything to make it end faster. The only ones remotely shaken by it were Gloria and Jake, asking a thousand questions about death in general, but as soon as we were finished lowering the casket, they sprang off to play hide and seek among the tombstones and the cypress bushes with the other children.
     Then came the reading of the will. I wasn’t surprised by the outcome, but I have to say that I was mighty satisfied watching the expression on Michael’s face when he heard he didn’t get squat. The golden boy fumbled, argued and pleaded, sweat darkening the armpits of his silk shirt, but there was no error, clerical or otherwise: I was the sole heir to the whole of the Dorcel automobile part empire. Michael took the first plane back to Houston, never saying a word to me, or anyone else in the house; I suspected forever.
     The inheritance wasn’t as substantial as one might have thought; or, it was, but it came bundled with a hefty debt, and those two mostly canceled each other out. There was the store, of course.
                                                                                  ***
     When I was a kid, I adored my father. He was like God to me. No, he was greater than God, as he actually performed feats and miracles right before my eyes. As I was growing up, the only thing I ever wanted in my future was to be like him: commanding, charismatic, respected, able. I dreamed about inheriting the shop and taking over the business, perhaps even expanding one day. I imagined myself coming home from work and finding my dad, gray and frail, sitting on the porch and drinking a beer, and he’d say “Come, son, sit with me. Have a beer, and tell me about how the business is going.”
     By the time I was a teenager I knew that none of that was going to come true, ever. Michael was going to be the one to inherit all, he was the one who would sit by dad’s side and get all the praise while I slaved in the background, trying to make myself invisible, like Manny did as a maid to some other rich asshole. 
     When he got sick, a plan sprouted in my head, an idea that I could turn him, by kindness and, if needed, trickery. I’d get him to love and respect me for looking after him, while making Michael look like a jerk in the process (which wouldn’t be difficult since he was a real jerk). And it worked. But, after all I heard him say, after I found out what kind of a man he really was, I decided that I didn’t want it, any of it. To hell with the store and the family business. I would sell it all and get another job, one where I would never ever have to work with cars or car parts again.
     I took the first offer on the store, covered all the deficits, and bought a red Corvette from the change.
     “Fuck it”, I thought. “I deserve this.”
     Anyway, the main part of my inheritance was still untapped, and it’s where the real money lay.
     Michael actually called me once.
     “C’mon bro, I mean, you aren’t gonna let me hang dry here? Who cares what he wrote in the will, the guy was a fucking Scrooge McDuck, and he was out of his mind the last couple of months. Hey, I’m your brother! C’mon, I’ll help you with the Malaby estate. It’s worth more than you know, it just has to be taken care of properly. I’ll sell it for a fortune, and then you can get thirty percen…”
     I hung up on him. It felt so good. That was the last time we spoke.
     But he was right about one thing: the Malaby property and all the problems surrounding it would need to be taken care of. Perfectly. No hasty reactions, no cut corners. Everything had to be done by the book.
     I left for the site one bright morning, followed by a couple of Manny’s cousins, a cleaning crew, and two moving trucks. I notified the police, local hospital and the Plano TV station. All of them arrived before us. The guy I was going to sell the property to was there also, contract in one hand, pen in the other. He knew that it was going to be a shitshow and he wanted to make sure I would sell to him at the agreed, ridiculously low price, before someone swooped in with a better offer. Unlike me, he had nothing to fear.
     The show was a more spectacular version of the first time we found interlopers on the premise. Stench. Filth. Death. Disturbing even in broad daylight. Police cuffed and loaded all of the still walking ones into their truck and drove off; the ambulance did the same with the dead ones. I sold off all of the parts that lay boxed up (all still intact, surprisingly) at bulk price, and a man with a crew carried them off immediately. I picked up the rest, a couple of mostly old boxes and instructed my men to take them to my home and put them wherever there was space: garage, shed, basement… Then we scrubbed the place, with heavy-duty detergents that smelled of ammonia. And the hospital where dad was admitted. 
     Finally, I signed the contract.
     “…the notorious ‘Damnation Domicile’, as it came to be known, is apparently no more. The son of the previous owner decided to clean up and sell the so-called cursed property, making this public area safe and attractive once again…”
     I slammed the door of the rented van and drove off, leaving the Hispanic TV speaker to run her mouth. It didn’t matter anymore. The nightmare was over.
     Or so I thought.
     The horror continued about a week later. I was pulling into my yard, returning from my new workplace, when the local busybody stuck her bespectacled face up to my windshield.
     “Mister Dorcel, we have a nice, safe neighborhood here, a family-friendly area, where children can play in the street, without fear…”
     I rolled down my window.
     “Is there something I can help you with, missis Lang?”
     “Well I… I do not approve of… this kind of business you are running. And I will not ask of you to… stop it, as I don’t want to get involved in any cartel business, but I just have to ask you, as a fellow parent, if you could conduct this operation… elsewhere.”
     “What in the hell are you babbling about, Mary Lue? Cartel?? What… operation?”
     “I just don’t feel safe with all these men coming ‘round here, that’s all! We all know what those people are capable of! Desperate, and, in pain… I don’t feel safe, not for me, not for my daughter…”
     “Mary Lue, your daughter is twenty-six and she lives in Chicago. As for that other business, I really don’t know what to make of it. I don’t understand one word you’ve said. Now, if you please would move away from my vehicle, I need to park.”
     Three days passed quietly.
     “Querido, there is a man in our yard,” said Manny, peering through the curtains into the dusky outside. “I think he’s looking for you.”
     I stood up with a groan, leaving a half-empty beer bottle on the coffee table to refract the light of the TV screen.
    “Yeah, what do you want?”
     The man didn’t answer. He stood in the shadows, gaze pointed towards the wall.
     “Hey, pardner, I asked, what can I do you for? You here for the pumps? You gotta come to the office, amigo, during business hours. There’s nothing I can help you with now.”
     The man didn’t say a word. He moved, slightly, and let out something like a low moan.
     I remembered the incident with missis Lang from before. Suddenly, blood started boiling in my veins. I jumped and grabbed the man by his collar.
     “Who the fuck do you think you are? What are you doing here, huh? Get out of here, you bum! You junkie!”
     I pushed the man out of the gate and sent him going with a well-placed kick in the behind. I locked the gate after and paced angrily back inside.
     “Who was that, querido?”
     “No one, dear, just (some bum)… someone who got the wrong address.” I answered, taking a swig of now lukewarm beer.
     I was seething. Thoughts buzzed through my head, wrecking my beer buzz. Was my dad really involved in some cartel business? I wouldn’t put it past him. Still, I didn’t really buy it. And then, there was the… But no. That story was finished. No. The store was sold. I had nothing to do with it.
     It was all just a coincidence. It had to be. After all, the States were crawling with beggars, junkies and immigrants nowadays.
     Next morning, I installed new locks on the front gate and the front door, as well as an alarm system with a motion sensor. All expensive, top of the line products. No cutting corners, no saving pennies. I was gladly paying extra because the mere thought of doing my best helped me relax; the commodity of a good night's sleep was certainly worth it.
     The next night, I woke up to a blood-curdling scream. The alarm was also on, blaring in the night, but the previous sound was far more urgent. It was Gloria. I ran like a madman through the hallway and down the stairs, ignoring my bewildered spouse, not even bothering to turn on the light. Arriving at the ground floor landing, I bumped into someone in the darkness. There was a moist splatting sound, like a slab of meat hitting the butcher’s counter. I grabbed this person’s head, mad with anger, wanting to smash it against the wall. The fingers of my left hand felt a wet, jagged bone, and a hollow, where one shouldn’t be. I felt my hair turning white. Another scream tore through the house. I pushed the man aside and continued running until I arrived to her room, almost tripping over a body on the floor.
     Gloria sat on her bed, knees curled up and with her back against the wall. She had a blanket lifted over her nose, as the thin fabric would protect her from the unknown assailants. Beside the person on the stairs and the one laying on the floor, there were three more in the spacious children’s bedroom. An old man, a gaunt young woman, and a little boy with a huge scar sprawling diagonally across his whole face. They all looked ghastly in the pale green glow of the night-light. I started shoving them away from my girl, roughly, beastly even, spitting obscenities through my gnashing teeth.
     “What the fuck do you want, you fuckers? You motherfucking… coward… shit-eating… scum…”
     But as eerily as they looked, they were no assailants. All three of them just stood there, looking more lost than threatening. A draft from an open window somewhere in the house rustled the fluff on the crown of the boy’s head, revealing that the scar went all the way around it. And then there was the smell. That same old smell that lingered in my childhood memories, made recent again in my father’s store and around his deathbed.
     “What… do you want?” I asked again, this time without anger. I felt tired, broken, and, strangely, sympathetic and genuinely curious.
     All three of them lifted their fingers and pointed towards the dresser. I followed their gaze, looking first at the mirror, then at the framed photograph of mom and dad hugging Michael and me in front of our old house.
     “What do you want? I don’t understand… I don’t live there anymore, I hadn’t for a long time… And the old man is dead! If he wronged you somehow, there’s nothing you can do more. He’s dead! He’s gone…”
     I looked again in the direction they were pointing. And I saw something else. An ancient, gunsight-shaped hood ornament, scrubbed free of rust, polished and re-chromed. I recognized it immediately.
     “Is this…? Are you looking… for the hearse? Your hearse?”
     The apparitions didn’t move, nor did they make any kind of sign, but I felt the affirmation emanating from them.
     “But it’s gone! Long gone! Scrapped for parts and sold! The rest is rust! If there is anything left of it, it’s…”
     And then it hit me.
     Manny and Jake were standing in the hallway in front of the room, trembling, mad with fear. I put my hand around Gloria and led her to her mother and brother, and instructed them to take a cab to somewhere safe. I finally knew what to do to end this.
     There were boxes in Gloria’s room. Ancient boxes, from the time dad first moved the junk from his scattered stashes into the Malaby locale. And somewhere in them were parts of his very first score, the one that kickstarted his legacy.
      “But it’s not all there.” I said to the dead. “There may be some parts of it there, but a lot of it is gone for good.”
     I got no reply apart from the cold stares. A lot of you is gone for good too, I thought.
     An idea rose in my head. Actually, two of them. One mostly philosophical, about how it was all connected: the old hearse, dad’s hidden rot, his legacy, the corruption he implanted into Michael and me… It all needed to be rejected and purged. Thoroughly.
I tuned off the alarm. Then, I pulled out my cellphone and rang my wife’s cousin.
     “Guillermo, hi, ola… Yes, I know it’s late… It’s urgent… No, yes… No, it’s not ok…. They are fine and safe… I need you to do something for me, I need you to find some men… We need to put together an old car… No, not in a week, right now… I know… I know… Well, make it possible… I’ll pay you… As much as you ask… I know this is not normal… Guillermo, it’s very fucked up, it’s... brujeria mala or something… It’s very important…. Thank you…”
     One long and confusing phone call later, I took a beer from the fridge and sat on the stairs outside the front door. The dead were still in Gloria’s room, rustling softly. I tried to ignore their existence, drinking deeply to cool myself from the hot, clammy air.
     About an hour later, a pick-up pulled up my drive-way, spilling a gang of tough looking Mexicans, bulging with tattooed muscles. All that bravado disappeared the moment I showed them my daughter’s room.
     “Dios mio…”
     “I need that hearse done now. I don’t care how you do it. I’ve got a lot of parts here, these you have to use. I’ve got some more in the garage, and I can get you the rest if you tell me what you need. It’s a Mercedes Benz W123, pretty common, shouldn’t be too hard to put together.”
     Twelve men worked like demons, sweating and straining in the warm night. They started by finding a similar hearse, and then they began changing parts, fixing, tweaking. It was still night when the deceased decided that it was finished. One by one, they started shambling out. The old man, the overdosed woman, the stitched-up boy, the man with spilt brains… Even the one from the floor got up.
     One of the men threw up upon seeing the remains of his visage.
Suddenly, a thick fog materialized out of nowhere, engulfing the whole yard. Guillermo and his men began panicking and mumbling in Spanish, equal part swearing and praying. The fog was made both of condensation and mind-noise, it seemed, and I soon started feeling like I drank ten beers instead of one. My thoughts were slipping, becoming as dreams. Through all of it, I heard opening of doors and sounds of engine. I don’t know how long it all went on, but, when I came to, there were no walking corpses anywhere in the vicinity. The hearse was gone, too, like it was never there.
     The tanned man in a red oil-stained tank-top stumbled towards me.
     “Hombre, what… I don’t know…”
     I put my hand on his shoulder.
     “It’s over. It’s all over. Whatever the fuck it was, I’ll never forget this, Guillermo. Never.”
     My mind was racing. I was anxious to go, right now. I reached in my pocket, pulled out my credit card and slipped it into Guillermo’s sweaty palm.
     “Here, take as much as you want. Treat the boys, buy them some steak. This money needs to be spent in good spirit. Take all the rest of the parts you find in the house. All the boxes we took from the Malaby place. And dump ‘em.”
     “Where are you going?” he asked, seeing me walking towards my car.
     I held my phone by my ear, fumbling with the key stuck in my pocket.
     “I need to find my wife and children. I need to find them…” I said with a broken voice, swallowing hard and failing to suppress the emerging tears. “And I need to hug them.”

​


​Nenad Pavlovic was born in Eastern Europe. He majored in the English language and literature before moving to Norway, where he now resides, working as a teacher and scribbling away every Friday night with a pint of ale at his side. His short fiction (mostly fantasy, sci-fi and horror, with a few exceptions) has been published in magazines and short story collections. His first novel, Hokus Lokvud, won the Mali Nemo Best Novel Award in 2013, and his latest novel, Salvation on Peril Island, published under the pen-name Nash Knight, is currently available on Amazon. Apart from being a writer, he is also a husband, a father, a music aficionado and a video-game guru.

PART ONE


The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.   

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.   

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   

And the highwayman came riding--

         Riding—riding--

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.



He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,   

A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.

They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.   

And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,

         His pistol butts a-twinkle,

His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.


Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.

He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.   

He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there   

But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

         Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.


And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked

Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked.   

His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,   

But he loved the landlord’s daughter,

         The landlord’s red-lipped daughter.

Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say--


“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night,

But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;

Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,   

Then look for me by moonlight,

         Watch for me by moonlight,

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”


He rose upright in the stirrups. He scarce could reach her hand,

But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burnt like a brand

As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;   

And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,

         (O, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)

Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.


PART TWO


He did not come in the dawning. He did not come at noon;   

And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,   

When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,   

A red-coat troop came marching--

         Marching—marching--

King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.


They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.   

But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed.

Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!   

There was death at every window;

         And hell at one dark window;

For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.


They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest.

They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast!

“Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the doomed man say--

Look for me by moonlight;

         Watch for me by moonlight;

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!


She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!

She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!   

They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years

Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,

         Cold, on the stroke of midnight,

The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!


The tip of one finger touched it. She strove no more for the rest.   

Up, she stood up to attention, with the muzzle beneath her breast.   

She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;   

For the road lay bare in the moonlight;

         Blank and bare in the moonlight;

And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love’s refrain.


Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horsehoofs ringing clear;   

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?

Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,

The highwayman came riding--

         Riding—riding--

The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still.


Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!   

Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light.

Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,   

Then her finger moved in the moonlight,

         Her musket shattered the moonlight,

Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.


He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood   

Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood!   

Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear   

How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

         The landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.


Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,

With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high.

Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;

When they shot him down on the highway,

         Down like a dog on the highway,

And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.


.       .       .


And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,

When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,   

When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   

A highwayman comes riding--

         Riding—riding--

A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.


Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.

He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.   

He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there   

But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

         Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

​

​You peer around the ancient trees, askew and unnatural yet still alive. That feeling in your gut, honed by years of war and rescue, hasn’t settled. You fiddle with the volume knob of your radio as your eyes catch where the moonlight casts shadows over the contorted knots of the oaks. You can sense that lingering silence of death hovering over you, yet the girl sitting near you is still breathing. Although, if the emergency helicopter doesn’t arrive soon, you’re not sure how long that will be true. 

Kate’s been missing for two weeks since she got lost in these woods. Only you are experienced enough, or dumb enough in Mike’s case, to climb down the cliff into the old sinkhole. You’ve been called in a few times over the years to come check down here for lost hikers, but practically no one who’s fallen down this cliff has survived. Yet there she was, and here she is; sitting around the lantern with you and Mike, completely calm.  

She’s gaunt but otherwise unharmed, if you’re not counting the level of exposure shock she’s currently going through. Although the dried blood smeared on her arm and caking her shirt when you found her had initially made you question otherwise. She told you it was from a meal, which would explain why she’s not completely starved. And you know better than to question what someone had to do to stay alive. 

Kate ignores her blanket, allowing it to slip almost off her shoulder. That’s never a good sign. She grazes a thin finger over the pale scar running across her lower jaw from ear to ear. Her mother didn’t mention the identifying mark, but she could barely give the police a complete, non-sobbing, sentence. Panic is the enemy of accuracy.

Kate’s voice is soft as if she’s still hiding from the bears and other predators that prowl this forest, while her gaze remains blankly watching the nothing in front of her.

“I heard that people used to come out here to hunt for scraps of proof on the legend stalking these woods. No one has ever told me the gruesome parts of the story, but being out here… I think I deserve to know the whole thing. Could you tell it to me?”

Mike practically lunges forward, released from his forced silence, and gets right up into the lantern’s light. He really is untrained. He shouldn’t try to scare someone during trauma, let alone someone in shock. 

You focus on the rustling of the leaves overhead, listening for the whirr of the helicopter blades. The warning in your gut grumbles back to life. You disregard it but stay alert. Maybe, at this rate she should at least have a last wish granted.

Mike lowers his voice and speaks with the slow eeriness only found around late-night campfires.

“There is a legend of a creature that roams these woods, responsible for all the people who have vanished here over the decades. It was created by a clan of magic-wielders long ago to hunt mankind to extinction. They gave it retractable claws, a second mouth jutting from its neck filled with needle-like fangs, and the ability to take on any appearance it wants. It was released into a village only to be met by gunfire, so it returned to these woods and hunted its creators instead. When it ran out of its prey, it learned to use its abilities to trick new victims. If it comes across you in its woods, it will take on the form of the person you love most, bloodied and dying. When you approach to help, it uses its claws to gut you alive. It will watch, saliva dripping from its maw, as the life drains from your body before using that second mouth to swallow you whole. The only thing it fears is the guns which were its first greeting in this world. So, if you travel into these woods and hear the pained voice of your loved one crying out for you, you better be ready to fire first or face your death at the hand of the Dee’aymin.” 

The wind blows past as you clench the spot on your waist where your pistol is strapped in its holster. Mike manages to keep his face straight for only a few more seconds before he bursts into a cackle.

“You should see the look on your face!” Mike doubles over, still pointing a finger at you.

“Not too bad, though I must say some details aren’t quite right.”

Kate’s voice is sleek and coy.

Mike stops laughing. He turns to her, eyebrows raised. A crooked sneer slithers across her lips. You blink, thinking the grin is a trick of the light, but she’s gone, her blanket abandoned on the ground. 

The sound of a snapping branch comes from Mike’s direction as he bolts up. You try to ignore that alarm in your mind firing off all your nerves at once.

“Did you see whe-“

Mike isn’t standing. He isn’t even sitting. He is strewn on the ground, limp. A puddle of blood pools under the place where his head used to be. That heavy aura of death you’d been failing to source since you got down here grows thicker.

Kate, the girl, the creature stands over Mike’s body. Blood is smeared all along the scar on its chin, dripping down its neck, yet its face is completely clean. That scar breaks open, revealing a glimpse of sharpened ivory. Its voice, grinding from its human mouth like it is the more unnatural of the two, scrapes against your bones.

“Thanks for the ‘rescue’.”

You draw your pistol. It vanishes with the wind into the snarling forest, taking Mike’s decapitated body with it. Only leaving behind a pool of blood, a trembling figure, and a revised legend.


​
Sam Kaufman is a writer from Connecticut. She started avidly writing in her sophomore year of high school doing both novels and short stories. She mostly writes dystopian tales but occasionally slips into fantasy as it is her favorite genre to read.

     I first saw her while shopping at the market. Passing her, I noticed her blue eyes, all the more striking because of her dark hair. We got into neighboring checkout lines. She turned and caught my stare. I looked away, feeling embarrassed.  
    The next morning I was in the classic literature section of a bookstore, and there she was, in a tight-fitting outfit that outlined her slim figure. Though a bit nervous, I went up to her and she remembered seeing me at the market. We joked about running into each other like this, and then discussed 19th-Century Russian writers. One thing led to another and I gained her name, Jenny Parker. As we chatted, she was open enough for us to exchange numbers.   
    Over the next few weeks we took walks in the park and strolled the city streets; the usual things couples do. We then began to spend time at my place, two-three times a week. It was best for her because she told me she lived with her invalid mother. All the while, we never... well, consummated our relationship. Jenny thought we needed more time. Not wanting to lose her, I went along with it. 
     A few weeks later we were in my living room, where she suddenly clawed at me, hollering No, Jack, no!
     I hadn't been doing anything, and Jack was my father's name, not mine. 
   Attacking me as she was, I shoved her away. She fell back. Her head hit the fireplace hearth. Blood pooled over the bricks. Her eyes were open, fading to red. 
    God forgive me, I had killed her.
    I rushed out and ran down the stairs into the lobby. Got control of myself and called the police. 
    “When you showed up,” I told the detective, “we came up here and—  
   "Yes, Paul," Detective Ackerman interrupted, "Up here, where there's no body and no blood." Then asked, "Were you on drugs, maybe hallucinating?"
    "No, no, it was all too real, and I don't do drugs."   
    "Before you called us, did you get rid of the body and clean up the mess?"
    "Absolutely not. I couldn't do a thing like that."
     A knock at the door and Ackerman's partner entered the apartment. "Sorry it took so long." 
    "That's all right," Ackerman said. "Gave me a chance to do a thorough inspection and hear Paul's story."
    His partner opened a folder and handed it to Ackerman. As Ackerman read it, his expression turned grim.
     When done, he gave me a remorseful look. "I suppose you know about your father."   
    "I don't know anything about him. He left us when I was two years old."
   Ackerman exchanged a glance with his partner, and then said: "That's when your mother legally changed her last name, along with yours." He drew a deep breath. "The reason was because back then your father had been executed for the murder of Jenny Parker."
    "I don't understand."
    Ackerman pulled a photo from the folder. He placed it on the coffee table. "This her?"
    I leaned forward and gazed at it, nodding slowly, stunned. My only thought: for the sins of my father…

I am afraid to say that I am a monster, I have not been happy with that fact and I certainly do not set out to be such a vile thing!
I have never once consciously decided to be a monster. Although, truth be told, I do enjoy being one sometimes, just for the variety, and, I confess I do love those few moments as a living being. 

For me though, they could be anything, they wouldn’t have to be ghastly creatures. The monster form just happens, when monsters are what they imagine, and that is all too often. For example, just now, one minute a man was standing there on the street corner, waiting, for what I don’t know. In my lighter moments I say to myself, ‘me, he was waiting for me!’ but I seriously doubt that. Who waits for me, for us, with such indifference?

Anyway, there he was. I was just ambling down the dark street, still resplendent in my most recent form, when I saw him there, on the corner, bathed in the light of a street lamp. Well, like I said, it’s not a deliberate choice, it’s just the job. There he was, and then suddenly there he wasn’t! 

It seems I had grabbed him in my strong jaws, dragged him into a nearby alley, and eaten a good-sized chunk of him before I realized what I was doing.

I came to or snapped out of, whatever state I was in, to find myself there, blood dripping off my protuberant fangs. My claws were covered in cloth and body matter, he had been wearing jeans and a hoodie. 

You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but as always when these monster moments overtake me, I was extremely embarrassed and gazed about, hoping no one had seen. There was no one around, so I stood up, on four strong legs, and went out onto the street to find a big window. I wanted to catch sight of myself before the power of his imagination faded, as his life already had. 

The art of a person, their imagination, their spirit, whatever you want to call it, is the very last thing to go.
I found something to see myself in, a big department store with almost nothing in it, spread over almost a third of a block. The windows were huge, the displays almost non-existent. 

There I was, in reflection, a huge cat creature, splendid in a striped coat, my fangs still dripping a little watery red, as the man’s blood had combined with my ancient saliva. A saber-tooth tiger, well, well. I had never been one of those before. I guess it made sense here, so close to Siberia. I twirled in front of the window to get a good look at the magnificent muscular body before it faded away, it was most impressive. 

Then, as usual, as the hovering soul finally departed for the other, my latest form departed too, and I was left, invisible, and feeling hollow and hungry again, my natural state, if I could be called natural, in any way, in this particular galaxy. I had returned to my area of ether, that in-between place, the space between atoms, and set to waiting for something to happen once more. It never took long, there are so many humans, and so few of us, we are always busy. 

Us monsters. We should not exist here. We began as wraiths I guess you’d call us. And we were caught, stolen, rescued, the three of us, from Sagittarius A. 

We weren’t supposed to be able to get away from that intense gravitational pull, but that’s the thing about being a spirit, one is not matter, nor is one anti-matter, we are other, we are the in-between, the unseen, but we can briefly take on material form. For very short periods, we undergo what in physical terms might be called a type of ionization, but that’s only a guess, we have not been studied by scientists, as they do not know we are here. 

We call ourselves spirits or shades, or lately just plain monsters, it’s easier. We have become a part of death. The fun part I guess. 

Every creature with enough self-awareness to know that Death is the ultimate consummation of life, pictures us, the harbingers of the end, as something different. They carry this image with them until that final moment. The man under the street lamp may have had a heart attack, but his most feared image was a sabre-toothed tiger, so…that’s what got him in the end. 

It’s interesting for us, the three shades of death, we get to play all sorts of characters, and get a few moments experiencing what it is like to be alive. 

We were doing fine, working alongside death, when the problem emerged. The problem was, we liked it too much, that little moment of life, and we wanted to find a way to stay in this ‘life’ longer.  The physical reality of being big solid objects is glorious. The imagined creatures we are allowed to briefly inhabit, and more pertinently the humans, whose imagination forms them, have no cognizance of the invisible reality swirling around, in, and through them. We find it highly enjoyable to be so solid for a bit, and restful to be a creature so convinced that reality is only what it can see and hear and touch. 

What a lovely, simplistic life these earth-surface dwellers have. We, us three, had been swirling around in our galaxy, all too aware of many planes of reality for eons, and let me tell you, it was as boring as! 
Then, luckily, we were caught, stolen, rescued, by Death. She brought us to where she worked, to this solar system, to this middling star with a beautiful planet orbiting it. We were surprised to find something so special in this far-flung part of the universe.

Death of course is as big as all the galaxies and as small as the smallest quark. We are in awe of Death and work with gladness with, and for, her. If it weren’t for Death, we would never have had the opportunity to experience life. That is the wonder that is at the core of this world. But, we wanted our times of living to last a bit longer than they usually did. So, we decided, we, the three shades, to ask Death to take a holiday.

And Death said yes!

We all agreed to become the monster our first customer imagined, and while we played at mortality, Death said she would have a nice rest. While we monsters went back to earth for our longer experiences of life, Death would not walk the planet. No, she would sleep. Nothing and no one would die, or cease to be. Nothing. No fish nor fowl, no stick nor stone. We would still consume our customers, our prey, in acts of Death, for that is the nature of us monsters in this realm. But no one would have the release of the ultimate finality.

After granting us our longer mortal moments, Death yawned and said the world would miss her terribly, but she needed a nap after all these years. We clapped our metaphorical hands, and went in search of our dying customers, taking on the forms these people visualized as their death, in all their different guises.

We didn’t realize, what we had created, was hell.

I ended up in a slithering serpent form, one of my sisters became an insect thing, and the other, an amphibious shark-like creature. Customers, prey, victims of our desire to experience life, were everywhere. They were people waiting for release. 

We were caught and held by the first ones we found. Mine was in a factory, he had been trapped in some machinery and the contraption had at first just mangled his hands, it was part of a conveyor belt, so from his hands, it went on to tearing up the rest of him, dragging him, constricting him, soon his whole body was caught up in it. The life was painfully crushed out of him. But, it had nowhere to go, as Death was sleeping, there was no ultimate release. The pain and fear and misery only repeated. There was nowhere for his life to escape to, he was trapped, painfully dying, over and over again. His addled mind had turned the conveyor belt into me, a great serpent squeezing the life out of him. But, without dear Death, the life just rushed back in, and the whole process was repeated over and over ad infinitum.

It was fun in the beginning, to be alive so long, but after a while, I got very bored, what with the echoes of pain, and the man’s gasping and pleading, and whinging and moaning. I just wanted it all to be done. Surely there was more to life than this? This could not be what my sisters and I had in mind. To my relief, he slid into some comatose state and was no longer able to imagine me, so I gladly left him being mangled and went to find my sisters, before he came to and I had to start again.

The first sister I found was in an amphibian form, and very impressive it was too. She was thrashing a big grey tail and tearing at a fisherman’s arm. He was slowly being torn apart and drowning. The blood in the water had brought a number of frenzied real sharks. At my behest, she released the still-living body and left the job to those real predators, they were, after all, the nightmare that he had imagined. We went together to find our other sister.

She was dealing with a most imaginative customer. Her client, customer, victim, was a soldier who had stepped on an incendiary device, and this soldier’s fear was complicated. She imagined an enormous insect tearing her body apart, spitting shiny film from its mandibles, wrapping each separate body piece in the sticky stuff, and hanging it in a tree to age. The woman, still alive, but with only her head and torso left, watched in horror. 

After hearing our plan, our sister happily left the noisy woman there on the ground. She would remain, bleeding profusely from her wounds, contemplating the bits of her own body dangling above her, until the process began again. 

We assured our sister she would be back in time for the beginning again if our venture proved fruitless. She had nodded, grimly, this deathless life that was so horrible and sad for mortals was very boring and repetitive for us. The woman was at the end of her imagining, shrieking in high decibels of fear, and moaning in pain. My sisters and I were glad for an excuse to leave the cacophony, at least for a time.

We decided, we had to wake Death up. Clearly, we couldn’t experience life without her.

Death was not pleased. 

“I was having a lovely dream,” she said. But we explained, and then we wheedled, and then we downright begged. “Oh, all right,” said Death. And she got up out of her bed and washed her deathly face and brushed her deadly teeth.“Off you go then,” she said irritably, “go experience life, but know, you must return to me.”

And we did. While Death stalked the world again and released her subjects from their suffering. We, for a short time, were no longer imprisoned by other creatures’ imaginings. We wore our favorite flying forms, we soared high into the sky and overtook the wind. We dove into the oceans and played in the deep dark recesses there. We roamed the earth on the back of the sun, and in the face of the moon. We saw flowers and jungles and great waterfalls, we saw babies and puppies and butterflies, and we cried, how we cried, knowing each beautiful thing would fade and then die. And we realized then, what we truly were. 

We were not just three horrible monsters delivering death. We were there for the humans, we made dying an adventure in a haunted house, we were three good reasons to strive to stay alive, we were the monsters under the bed. We were helping to make life worth living. 

And we were satisfied then, each one of us, to have just a moment of life, as we heralded dear Death, to one dying creature or another, so that other life could live. 

We saw that we were helpful, that we were beautiful in our way. I was happy enough then, to be a monster.
​

Melissa Miles is an American who lives in New Zealand. She had many professional iterations--acting, teaching, film-making--but is now focusing on her writing while caring for her aging menagerie.