“String her up,” yelled a cruel voice.

She lifted her head, not to look at her attacker but to a stooping man at the top of the hill. She stumbled forward on legs bitten by fear.

“On your legs, you don’t want to keep Old Gnarly waiting.’”

She tried to scream yet her voice died in her throat.  She was pulled upright and harsh hands pushed her forward. 

She felt her back being struck by something soft. She did not look behind. The crowd enjoyed her discomfort and more unpleasant missiles found their mark.

‘”Don’t waste good food on that beast. Feedthe rats, they deserve it more than the likes of her. I doubt even they would feast on her devil bones,” screamed a woman who two nights ago a trusted friend.

Justice wasn’t fair. The Laird invaded her bedchamber to sow his craven seed. Who was she to refuse? She tried to resist yet Gordon Monroe would not be denied her hidden flesh and beat her until she yielded.

He moved her into his estate so she could be available. Her mother insisted she complied with her Lord’s wishes. Monroe’swife became suspicious and began to watch until she caught her husband inMiriam’s bed.

“Forgive me Margaret, this succubus hascast a spell on me. God save my soul,’” he pleaded.

Miriam protested yet Margaret believed her husband. 

Miriam looked to the crest of the hill,trying to ignore Old Gnarly. Gordon looked down. Margaret scowled at Miriam. She couldn’t wait to see her dance in death.

Miriam was shoved into Old Gnarly. The massiveoak’s many branches possessed several rotting victims of justice. Many of the corpses were little more than bleached bones who the crows had long since ignored. 

 A powerful figure grabbed her by the shoulders and thrust her neck into a hessian necklace. She tried to remain calm yet fear found its voice with a scream.

“Do away with the witch. Death to the succubus,” yelled Margaret.

The executioner looked towards the Laird. Monroe nodded. Miriam felt tension seize her neck.

She lost contact with the ground and fought for her breath. She felt herself lifted higher into the great tree and her head throbbed in unbearable pain. She knew her death would be slow, cruel and wicked.

Her throat released a choking song. Her head swam with the taste of blood, the smell of dead lichen and stench of decaying flesh. 

She felt her breath becoming shallower. She cursed the Laird, his cruel wife and the crowd. She welcomed the blackness andthe crows who awaited their new feast.

He took pity on her then, aloft and hidden in the heights of the tree. He seethed when he saw the innocent lamb sacrificed to Monroe’s lust. He heard hert houghts when she wished for vengeance. He could not endure their judgement.

He swept down amongst them, a wretched black crow growing and yammering black hearted curses. They ran for theirpathetic lives. The Laird and his wife were stricken with terror when a real devil entered their company. He stood alone by the tree whilst they sprintedback to their feeble homes.

He floated towards the woman at the edge ofdeath. He unhooked the rope stole the last beatings of her heart. He cured her of mortality before cursing her with undeath.

The impure angel was lifted aloft by her new benefactor. He stroked the sides of her bone white cheeks. He would teach cure her hunger. Her mind told him she wasthankful for her unexpected gift. Her black eyes flickered and three words escaped her purple lips:

“Grant me vengeance.”

________________________________________

©2012 Gary Hewitt

The Director also looked at the two people sitting on the other side of the one-way mirror. At one end of the table, he spotted Phryni with Claudio sitting at the other side. Phryni was sitting straight with both hands placed on the table in front ofher. Next to her was an ancient notepad as well as an antique device called a “pencil”.

“Why not use computersor hyper devices,” asked the Minister. “Cyberhacking” answered the Director.

Hell’s bells, he thought. Even a child knew that any form of online communication could be hacked, hijacked, or abused. That’s why the Telescribe Corps was founded- a group of talented telepaths that were able to receive messages by sheer thought. Unfortunately, very few were able to tune in to a specific sender’s wavelength and replicate the message sent. He felt lucky that he had two top talents: Phryni and Claudio.  Most countries had none or may be one; even India which its huge talent pool was only able to produce three.

He felt lucky that he had been able to enlist Phryni. She was a true find; talented, loyal and smart. She also had telekinetic abilities, which allowed her to write down the received message without even touching pencil or paper. This ensured that the received message was truly original and legit, and not manipulated in any way.

While the two men were watching, the woman closed her eyes. A moment later, the pencil started to write furiously on the notepad, copying the received message. The Minister was impressed. But suddenly the delicate gold necklace Phryni was wearing wrapped itself around her throat strangling her slowly. She kept her eyes shut while smiling secretively.

“What kind of blistering idiot is trying to murder your number one telescribe?” barked the Minister. The Director almost fainted. Just what he needed – a murder attempt with the Minister as the main witness.  

Phryni knew that her delicate necklace would break before it could do her any real harm. She had put it on that morning with the sole purpose of flushing out the culprit. She had known for some time that there was a traitor among the telescribe community. In the last few months, too many of her fellow telescribes had been murdered. The modus operandi of “Jack the Gripper” (as he/she was known in the community) was elegant in its simplicity: attack the telescribe when he/she is most vulnerable– when receiving and transcribing a message.  They all were killed in the same way: Raj in India was strangled with his lucky charm, Cristo in Mexico with his St. Christopher medallion, Sheila in Australia with her funky ethnic necklace, Thundercloud in Arizona with his totem necklace, and the list went on and on……

In all cases police were stumped. No motive and no recording of the perpetrator by any sensor or camera. So the telescribe community (sub rosa of course) had decided to take action. Since Phryni had telepathic as well as telekinetic powers, she was chosen to be the bait.  She was happy to accept the task; flushing out the one slaughtering her kind was too important. Their combined“telesleuthing” had pinpointed Jack the Gripper to originate from Arlington, VA,the workplace of Phryni.

It had been quite easy to set up the trap. The visit of the Minister was too much of a chance for Jack the Gripper to forfeit. And lo and behold, once the attempt was made on Phryni’s life, the Minister summoned Action Forces to respond.  With their “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude, they pulverized Claudio on the spot. Phryni was in shock. Claudio had always been so nice and professional….

“That solves the problem and keeps you safe”, said the Minister, addressing Phryni while entering the room. She frowned. Something just did not add up.  When the Minister reached out to grab the notepad, she realized that there was a system to this madness. She decided to play dumb for now.

Once back at her apartment, Phryni relaxed with a nice glass of wine. Some things stayed the same since the beginning of civilization – “vino” being one of them. While she closed her eyes, savoring the quiet of her apartment, she felt a chill and heard a tinn yvoice.  “You think you won?” the voice asked. “You really did’t. You and your kind need to be eliminated. Only then willI be able to rule supremely, disposing of all opposition, including that battleship of a wife of mine.”

Only then did she realize what had been nagging her all along: she was going to die by the hand of the true Jack the Gripper: the Minister of Communications. She immediately sent a last desperate message to all her fellow telescribes. When the Minister approached Phryni to telestrangle her, he suddenly felt tightness in his chest.“You b…” he thought before collapsing. Phryni sensed him dying.

A fitting end to a villain, she thought, may he rot in Hell. Mentally thanking her fellow telescribes for saving her.

The new Minister of Communications decided that he had to do something about the Telescribe Corps. As the former Director and cursed with the same telescribe powers, he knew too well what they were capable of. Hedecided that he didn’t have a choice; he had to clean house- starting with the elimination of its most prominent member– Phryni…

_________________________________

©2012 Debra Daumier

The minister droned on in staccato.

To entertain myself, I lapsed into a daydream. I knew what the preacher was saying.

I imagined that this is what he should say:

As angry as I was with Daniel at the end, I couldn’t help to think about the good times. Wine in bed in the afternoons, our favorite hotel off Route 25. I used to wonder if I’d married the wrong Rubidoux.Daniel was not the man you married. Just the one you slept with.

I took a glance at my husband. I saw his tears. I nodded and tried to give him a reassuring smile. He held my stare for a moment and then turned away.

Finally, the minister concluded his sermon and the service ended.

The family members filed slowly past the casket .

When I looked up, only my husband Anthony and I remained at the graveside.

“Margaret,” he said softly. “What would you like to do for dinner?”

I looked up at him. He was struggling very hard to hold back tears.

“I thought you’d want to go to the repast?”

He shook his head. “I’ve had enough to do with people today.” He kissed the top of my head. “I know the others will be expecting us… but if you don’t mind, I’d do just as well to go home, have a home cooked meal and go to bed.”

I wasn’t too happy about the idea of home cooking. After all, that meant I’d have to do the cooking. I smiled tightly .

“I can whip up something.”

“Thank you so much, baby.” he leaned over and kissed me, with a passion that made me think he was not really worried about dinner after all. It felt odd to kiss here, with his brother only feet away in his new coffin.

I shivered.

“Let’s get out of this weather,” Anthony said. “I’ve one more thing to do, and then we can go.”

He fished a bottle out of his pocket. Inside were sand and tiny, crystal like rocks.

Anthony opened the jar and emptied the contents in a straight line down the length of the casket.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Sand and stones,” he replied, “that my brother and I gathered from our Grandmother’s ranch out in California. We’d go there every summer as kids, and every year we’d bring back sand and rocks.”

Another of my husband’s sentimental, meaningless gestures.

***　

By the time we reached the house I could see how exhausted Anthony was.

“Do you want to lay down, baby, and I can come wake you when the food is done?”

He shook his head. “No, I really couldn’t sleep right now. Come have a drink with me?”

We went in the kitchen and sat down. He pulled a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. After the first few drinks, I saw that my husband was relaxing. His eyes softened. “Come on woman, have a real drink,” he poured enough whiskey to fill my cup to the rim.

What the hell? I thought. If he was drunk enough he wouldn’t want dinner. Maybe I could even get out of having sex with him later.

Eventually, I went upstairs to bed, leaving him to work his grief out with the bottle.

I woke to the sound voices downstairs.

The clock on my nightstand read 12:01.

Fool, I thought, he’s drunk , and downstairs talking to himself. He was loud. I couldn’t

really understand what he was saying, but it was a good bet that some of our nosey neighbors could hear. I put on my robe and slippers and headed downstairs.

Anthony was sitting with his back to the kitchen door. As I rounded the corner I saw a figure standing up at the counter, leaning there. It was his voice that I heard, a slurred, almost unintelligible rush of words, like an old vinyl LP played too slow.

“The sand did it. Like they always told us. How did you know for sure that Lazarus sand would do it?”

Anthony replied, still in his chair, looking into the face of our visitor. “I didn’t know, but I had to try.”

“Brother, why did you wake me?” Daniel said.

“I had to know, who killed you?”

“Her.”

He raised his hand and pointed at me.

“Is it true?” Anthony turned and came to me. His brother was right behind him.

I shook my head, but I could not speak. I was rooted to the spot, still looking into Daniel’s eyes. I wanted to believe that it was the whiskey. But here he stood. This was no dream.

“Answer me!” Anthony screamed. “Answer me!”

***

Nearly a week later, Anthony Rubidoux stood alone at the gravesite of his wife.

They said she died of a heart attack. People speculated that it had something to do with the shock of her brother-in-law’s passing only days before.

Only Anthony knew the truth. Daniel knew the truth as well, but he laid cold in his grave, silent and unmoving. The stones and dust that had resurrected him had been painstakingly swept away from the grave by his brother.

________________________

 ©2009 Lori Titus

Hunting in Closed Spaces (The Marradith Ryder Series, Part 1) is now available on Amazon.com . Also look for Harmony’s Prophecy, co-authored with Angel Brown Kemph:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=lori+titus&sprefix=lori+titus%2Caps%2C431

She glances back, her expression terrified. There is blood on her face and clothes. A second set of footsteps is coming fast. The woman looks back again and rounds the corner. It is a dead-end. The moment she realizes this the other footsteps stop running. There is a moment of silence as she turns fully around to face whoever is chasing her. She stares at the corner, heart hammering in her chest. She listens as the steps resume and get closer. When they reach the corner they stop.

It is again quiet; the woman listens to her own labored breathing. Suddenly she hears a shoe scrape just around the corner, very close. The woman stares, watching and waiting. A silhouette of a man steps around the corner. The woman tenses up. The man steps into the light. He is wearing a uniform. He is a cop. The woman sighs, relief evident in her entire body. The cop smiles in a disarming way.

“It’s okay. You’re safe.” He stops, stares. “Jesus, is that blood? Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

She shakes her head. “No. No, I’m okay. It’s not mine.”

“What happened?”

She looks up at him and smiles. “This.”

She leaps at him with inhuman speed, tearing out his throat with her suddenly elongated teeth. The cop falls to the ground, dead instantly. His blood pools out around his body.

The woman looks up and sees a pair of boots, belonging to a tall, good-looking, well-dressed man of indeterminate age. He is looking at the woman, expressionless. She growls at him.

“What the fuck are you lookin’ at?”

He shakes his head. “An amateur.”

She snarls at him. “I’ll kill you!”

She leaps inhumanly fast, but he swats her aside as if she were an annoying insect. She recovers and is on her feet almost instantly.

He shakes his head. “I think not.”

She lunges again, ferocity in motion. He catches her by the hair with one hand and both her wrists in the other.

She can’t even track him, he’s that fast.

Again, he shakes his head, almost sadly. “Sorry, but I just cannot tolerate competition.”

He puts his foot on her chest and pulls her head right off. He leaves her decapitated body next to the cop’s and walks away, still holding her hair, head swinging at his side and occasionally bumping into his leg.

A large, sturdy door opens into a dark, subterranean room. There is a pit in the center of the floor. The man peers over the rim at thousands of human skulls; they all have elongated fangs. He pulls the head of the woman up and looks at her face for a moment. He thinks she might have been pretty, and almost regrets killing her. But, then he shrugs and tosses it underhand and it lands amongst the rest.

_____________________________

©2012 Ken MacGregor

It’s all about numbers for them, sales and commissions and profits and retirement funds. After the bottom fell out of the stock market, those who didn’t kill themselves found salvation in the latest phase hitting
the country: zombies.

And they had the pick of the litter, too. There was no lack of desperate souls willing to trade in their chips for a chance to change their life.

Zombies saved the economy, starting with reality television. We did for mass media what porn did for the Internet. And then there were the merchandise tie-ins, the spin-off shows, the novel adaptions, the
signings, the conventions, and the interviews.

Before the zombie thing got out of control, the government stepped in and wrote all kinds of regulations and requirements to make sure that down-to-earth, honest, hard-working homeowners weren’t tricked into giving up their lifesavings in exchange for a guaranteed cash payout. I guess they were worried about it being some kind of pyramid scheme, but it’s nothing like that, because there’s no end to this pyramid.
The hunger makes sure of that.

The hunger hits like a garbage truck crashing through your grandmother’s reception at the local funeral home. You want to look away, but you can’t, you can’t pry your eyes off the hideous spectacle
unfolding in front of you. You can’t think about anything aside from digging your teeth into the hot, wet, flesh that beats behind the ribs of the nearest human.

This is your first hunger cramp. Congratulations, it’s about as fun as giving a cat a root canal.

The real kicker is that not a single one of the government’s regulations concerning the zombie industry require the ex-Wall Street brokers to disclosure what will happen to us after we undergo the change. No one cares about us. We’re the refuge of society: the poor, the broken, the lost.

When the stock market imploded, the rich managed to collect enough pieces of their fortunes to put themselves back together again. But the rest of us, we were lucky if we knew what we were going to eat for
dinner.

Now what we’re going to eat for dinner is about the only thing that isn’t a question anymore. Most of us give in to the hunger within days.

I wish I could tell you that if you make it through your first hunger cramp, the next one is easier. It isn’t. From the first moment of the change, you’re burning up from the inside. Your tongue, your stomach,
your intestines become a phoenix, disintegrating into ash only to be reborn with a taste for meat.

Blood dribbling down your chin, white stringy flesh caught in the cracks between your teeth, bones splintering underneath the force of your molars; it’s shots like these that sell. The paparazzi film-crews
that follow us always get their money shots. Some of us even have followings. Middle-aged women run websites devoted to us on the Internet and kids wear sweatshirts with our faces on them.

We’re not. We’re just the sad sacks who made the wrong choice. But unlike a bad tattoo that you can cover up, we’re stuck with the hunger forever.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, in the unfortunate event that you, like me, became a zombie before you knew the truth, then listen up. There might be no magic cure, no way to sate the hunger, but there
is a way to contain it.

It helps to start a routine. Get a gym membership and actually use it. Invest in some personal exercise equipment. One of those stationary bikes or some weights will suffice. Take up jogging.

It might seem counterintuitive that burning calories will help you forget the hunger, but the slow burn of your muscles during exercise helps distract from the fire in your stomach. Trust me. There has been
so many times that I’ve been tempted to take a bite out of my next-door neighbor, Will, who likes to play the drums at three in the morning. A few sets of crunches later and the need to sink my teeth
into his flesh is more of a footnote in my mind than a headline.

An upside of exercising is that you’ll start looking good. Better than you ever looked before the change. Some zombies let themselves go. There’s no need for this to happen.

The more people comment on your looks the better your self-esteem will become. You’ll start taking pride in the way you look, zombie or not. You’ll make regular haircut appointments, something you never did
before the change. You’ll bathe and wear actual clothes, not just pajamas.

None of these things make for very good publicity, though. So don’t be surprised if the ex-Wall Street broker crowd tries to bait you with a good ole ding-dong ditch, leaving a fresh heart or maybe a tasty leg
on your doorstep.

The key to handling these situations is to remain strong. You take that first bite, that’s it. Game over.

Which is why it’s good to test your resolve in small doses. Whenever I’m at the local grocery store, stocking up on laundry detergent for all my sweaty workout clothes and deodorant for the under-the-arm
emergencies, I swing by the meat department.

Testing your resolve is the key to living as a zombie. It’s easy to be a vegetarian if you only ever shop at the local co-op, surrounded by all that granola and flax seed and rice flour. If you can make it through an entire evening at the best steak joint in town without once giving in and ordering something more than water, then congratulations, you’re ready.

But if you ever feel your resolve start to slip, even a little, you better look up your local Zombie Anonymous meeting. We don’t advertise in the yellow pages, but if you’re one of us, you’ll know where to find us.

____________________

©2012 Megan Pryor

Megan Pryor graduated from Western Washington University with a B.A. in English. She is currently an MFA candidate at Vermont College of Fine Arts.  mmpryor.com

Her skin was pale and flawless. Her eyes were beautiful and blue, the color of a swirling sky. Her lips were red and full of emotion, she despised disappointing people. It made her hate them and herself. For brief moments she could forget her impairment, her dysfunctional life, but this, this always brought home how different she was. She would sometimes forget, and think herself normal, an average person with an average life. She would go out with acquaintances, and eat and drink. She would only allow herself to occasionally drink to excess. It was too dangerous, too risky, for her toforget who she was. She had to remember, she had to keep everyone at adistance.

Her life was irrevocably changed at sixteen. That was when she found out that her life was being drained away. She couldn’t see the wounds made by the mysterious beast, no one could. The damage was on the inside, slowly turning her innards to Swiss cheese. The doctors told her it would claimher life – a gift of a death, given to her on her sweet sixteen.

But they were wrong. Her life continued on in its pained existence, each year following the next until she forgot she was doomed to die. She let herself live and love, and then she married far too young at twenty-one. While their love had been ripe, the marriage quickly spoiled. Their fertile love found it could not grow in the barren wasteland of her body. His need demanded disciples of his descent, which she could not provide. And he left. And she again felt her disease consume her, both in body and in mind.

Life left her fated time. Living in limbo, not allowed to live, and unwilling to die.

“What do you mean?” he asked her, his gentle face pleading for answers. Remembering the nights they spent tangled together, he asked again, “Why can’t you be with me?”

“It just won’t work,” she whispered. “I can’t give you what I don’t have to offer.” She too remembered their time together – his strong hands cupping her breasts with eager intent, his hungry mouth licking the length of her body. She burned in the forbidden memories that bubbled and boiled in her mind.

“What can’t you give me? What?”

She didn’t answer him. She was caught in the torrents of her sexual desires. Stuck in the memories of why she came to him, and how he always made her come. She smiled up at him, unable to stop herself. “Well, what can you offer me?” he asked.

“Me. Only me. Nothing more, and most likely less. But only me.”

“That’s all I want.”

“No, you’ll want more. Then I’ll leave. As soon as you’ve used me up, and I’ve devoured your soul, then I’ll leave.”

“Wha–” he almost asked, but her hunger silenced his voice with a kiss. He forgot what she said to him, and he fell into her passion, so aroused by her avidity.

Her greedy hands tore his clothes and scratched his skin. She would be sorry once she was done, after it was over, but her need to be loved, and her need to be normal was too great. She removed her own clothes until only her dainty lingerie was left. He helped her to the floor, lying beside her, his mouth never leaving hers – she wouldn’t allow it to. His hands slid down the sides of her body and, as she arched her back in response, he removed her black-nightshade panties. He then thrust himself between her thighs.

She waited until he came at last. As he lay on top of her, she began to save herself. This is why I can’t love you. It always comes back to me, to my wants and needs; I can’t belong to anyone, because I always end up killing them, so I can save myself.

She latched her lips to his once more. He thought it was her way of thanking him for a job well done…she slowly opened her throat and began to suck his life away. She stole his breath, feeding herself between his sighs of content, unaware of what was happening to him. At his last breath, she released him. He was a shell, a husk, of the man she remembered. She, herself, felt stronger, so much better – She felt whole once more.

Her disease may be killing her, but it also gave her a way to survive. She had the will, and had found a way to fill the gaping holes inside her body. She hated herself for doing it, but, she thought, it is better he die, than me.

__________________________________

©2012 Jennifer Van Gilder

It’s a manga, a form of Japanese cartoons. One of the pictures features a woman with long black hair, her face covered with a surgical mask. In front of her stands a young girl in the dim, eerie light of a street lamp. She is not unlike the girl on the bench: she wearsa school uniform -high socks and knock knees- and she carries a school bag onher back. Her face too is like porcelain. “Am I pretty?” the woman is asking her.

“Yes,” the girl answers in her speech bubble, “very pretty.”

The pictures turn to black and white now. From behind, we see that the woman has half removed her mask. The back of her head is in the shadows and her left hand, backlit, clasps the mask so that it uncovers part of her face. That is all we can see of her. In front of the woman, with her porcelain face drowned by the light, the girl stands frozen still. Her black eyes are transfixed and huge and round, and her mouth is distorted with horror.

The next cartoon features the woman’s face: it is ghastly and grotesque. Wide open scars run from the corners of her mouth to her ears.  Some call that a Glasgow smile: an incision is made with a knife at the edges of the lips, andwhen the victim screams with pain, their cheeks tear and unzip from mouth to ears. The stitches have come undone on the woman’s scars, and the gaping holes reveal two rows of sharp pointed teeth coated with blood. A stain extends on the woman’s kimono all the way down her breastplate, almost to her navel. It isdrawn black, since black should be the colour of blood. She is the ghost of Kuchisake-onna, the wife of a samurai sliced open in retribution for her infidelities. An old Japanese legend.

In her hands, she holds an outsized pair of scissors. “What about now,” she asks smilingly. “Am I still pretty?” Her eyes betray her desire to cut the girl, almost rapturous in their longing.

The girl has heard the story before, a thought bubble informs the reader. “If you answer ‘yes’, you get cut; if you answer ‘no’ you get cut also.” Such are the words that cross her mind.

“You’re average,” she says, before escaping from the slit-mouth woman who has been rendered temporarily confused by the answer.

The pictures switch back to colour after that. The colour of Ramona’s bright red cheeks, as she remains perfectly still on the bench.

***

Ramona is fifteen, a school girl, high socks and knock knees. They cut her a Glasgow smile aged thirteen. When she catches her reflection in a shop window, all she sees is Kuchisake-onna, the slit-mouth woman of the Japanese tale. “Average!” she shouts, to exorcise theimage. But there is nowhere to escape.

________________________________________

©2012 Nick Janvier

Nick Janvier lives, works and plays in South Wales, as far away as can be from the world of responsibilities. A failed athlete, sloppy thinker and occasional traveller, he likes simple men and complicated women, clean lines of surf, wasabi crackers, the shortness of his own breath when he exercises, and the smell of freshly cut grass on warm summer days. Read more at http://www.slitmouth.com

Gretchen had suffered under the witch’s lashings for the last decade, since Grandma Darkhorne had pulled her from the orphanage in London for apprenticeship. She grumbled at her crone teacher. She fetched the pine broom and raked the floor. She knelt and caught beetles between her fingers and dropped the wee leggers into a clay pot. Grandma Darkhorne enjoyed them with her tea. Then, Gretchen scraped the cauldron clean of the residual ooze from their arcane labors. She hurried and cursed below the range of her mentor’s gourd ears.

“Nay not one spell,” Gretchen mocked her. “Not one devil familiar summoned to scrub the pots or push the broom.”

“Govern your tongue, toad. Or I’ll teach you naught more. You’ll be a wench with parlor tricks entertaining for pennies at parties. And I’ll live forever to snicker at you in eternity.”

Grandma Darkhorne rested her stumpy legs on the stuffed pig at the foot of the chair. She wiggled her twelve toes and sucked on her pipe. She leaned on her side and expelled gas, poisoning the atmosphere with a rotting reek.

“And speaking of dinner. Get that cauldron gleaming. Then we start simmering. Tonight be the night. The test. The unfinished recipe. To stew the old power. The soup bones of lost Hades.”

Gretchen chipped at the crust sealed on the cauldron interior. She paused to tie back her raven feathers and yanked up hert hreadbare stockings.

“I’ll gnaw on your bones, old crow.”

Grandma Darkhorne rocked and grinned like an old cat chewing on a young bat.

“The young be always so impatient,” she said. “Dread not. Your time comes soon, pupil. Now take this list of ingredients and fetch them in the wood. We have stew to brew! But you’ll know not the last ingredient. This is your test.”

Gretchen read the parchment, her eyes struggling in the dim candlelight. The wind beat the windows and riled the roof thatch. She crumpled the paper in a fist.

“Mayhaps some hawthorn berries,” Grandma Darkhorne said. “To satisfy m’craving.”

Gretchen pushed on her boots and cloaked herself in animal furs. She incanted over sharpened quartz. The crystal glowed by her words to light her way. She lunged against the door battling the wind, shaking the cabin. The scimitar hung by the door rattled. She tumbled out into the wood and winter.

She thrust through the whipping snow, seeking out a dead oak. She gathered bark worms from the moribund husk—the first ingredient on the list.

She’ll do it tonight, she mused, and finally be done with the old tyrant. The witch’s left eye dimmed blind, wouldn’t see Gretchen coming from the side with scimitar in hand.

She hiked to the abandoned graveyard and dug around inside a crypt till she’d gathered three finger bones.

Tonight, she’ll not raise suspicion. She’ll feed the old witch her last meal.

In the pulpy swamp, she gathered sipping leeches from her legs. She pondered the last ingredient for the enchanted brew, another test by her mistress. She cared little.

On the return, she fetched hawthorn berries from the bush. With all her wares gathered and task satiated, she trekked back to the cabin. Wolves keened in the far woods. She paused, kicked her legs and howled, joining their choir. Then, she burst through the cabin door.

“Careful now with those delicacies, useless wench. Now builda good fire, hot as hell and just as eternal. Long as there be evil in the hearts of men, so hellfire shall burn.”

Gretchen piled pine sticks into the open hearth fireplace. She struggled to hang the black cauldron on the crane above the wood. She incanted fire on her tongue and spat the flame on the fuel. The flames glinted off the scimitar on the wall. Her eager hand feigned gripping it in the air.

“Gather several buckets of snow.”

Gretchen obeyed and dumped the hoary frost into the cauldron.

They feed the cauldron through the afternoon. She dumped inthe gathered ingredients along with bat’s milk, deer venison, mushrooms and herbs to spice the stew. As night cloaked the woods, the savory odor set her stomach rumbling. She fiddled her fingers, giddy from her planned assassination.

“I’ll churn the stew then take my nap,” Grandma Darkhorne said. “Stir it evenly while I sleep, or you’ll burn the stew, cork-brained wench.”

“Aye mistress,” Gretchen said. “I shall obey for as long as you live.”

“Forever shall I live, and so shall I teach you, if you can name the missing ingredient. Fail, and today you sup on stew, then anon worms shall sup on you.”

Grandma Darkhorne stood on a stool and stirred the bubbling stew with a long spoon carved from a human femur. Gretchen grabbed the scimitar and giggled as she swung. With a clean slice, she severed Grandma Darkhorne’s potato head from her bulbous body. Her head dropped and sunk into the stew. Her body collapsed. Gretchen danced on the balls of her feet, lifting her skirts and squealing.

“Sup well tonight, old crone!” Gretchen said.

“So I shall!” the head spoke from the broth. It bubbled to the surface and bobbed about on the boil. “Witch. You pass your test.” Her floating head sucked down a portion of stew. It flowed right out of her sliced neck and back into the pot.

“Your head was the last ingredient?”

Grandma Darkhorne winked and nodded.

“Now one last chore,” the crone’s head said. “Fetch needle and thread. This stew is tasty, and I can’t sup without my guts.”

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©2012 T. Fox Dunham

T. Fox Dunham resides outside of Philadelphia PA—author andhistorian. He’s published in over 100 international journals and anthologiesand was a finalist in the Copper Nickel Annual Short Story Contest for hisstory, The Lady Comes in the Night. He’s a cancer survivor. His friends callhim fox, being his totem animal, and his motto is: Wrecking civilization onestory at a time. http://www.facebook.com/tfoxdunham

No one wanted to go to the third floor of the school library.  It was said to be haunted by an angry female ghost.  I never found out why this ghost decided to give everyone the scare of their lives.  As far as the guys at the college, many were afraid of women, period.  It didn’t matter if they were ghosts or not.  Many couldn’t handle being around pretty girls.  I suspected a ghost would probably give these people a heart attack if they ever saw one. 

I wasn’t afraid of anyone on the campus.  I’d walk around the cafeteria or cruise through the hallways without being noticed.  I was pretty quiet but I was willing to chat if the moment was right.  Of course, there was the right time to socialize and the right time to work when it came to being a student.

I needed a quiet place to where I wouldn’t be around any people.  I hated background noise when I was doing something important. That was the main thing I cared about.  I wanted time away from the dorms and I knew I didn’t want a study partner.  Having a roommate had been a real annoyance. 

Luckily, I had been living in a room by myself for the last few days.  No one had seen my roommate Trevor around anywhere and people noticed that he was missing some of his classes.  They didn’t seem concerned about it, though. When I heard people talking during the lunch hour it seemed like the general theory was that Trevor was just spending time in the mountains.  That was pretty common in Washington state. 

I guess I just wasn’t the common student on campus but I decided to take my chances with the school library.  All I really cared about was the third floor.  I knew if I went there in the middle of the night I’d have the place to myself and that’s exactly what I did.  It was probably three in the morning when I left the dorms and ventured over there.  It was cold outside but I didn’t care.  I knew the trip would be worthwhile and I could study in peace. 

When I arrived at the building, the door was unlocked.  It was a huge wooden door that was painted black, unlike the rest of the exterior which was grey.  I figured those doors were supposed be locked but security never did their job.  They left the lights on in the place, too.  As soon as I went inside and started walking around the first floor, I began to wonder what people were so afraid of.  I knew that even Trevor would have been afraid of an adventure like this but it was no big deal for me. 

The place was nothing fancy.  There were rows of books displayed as expected.  Plus,  a few tables were set up in the corner of the room and all the computers had been turned off for the night. 
This had just been my experience on the first floor and I was much more curious about the third one.  I decided to take the elevator instead of the stairs.  The elevator was the worst part.  It was so slow that it seemed to take all night just to go up two floors.  When the elevator door finally opened, I realized everything was set up just like the first floor.  The difference was that I knew someone was in the room.  I could sense it. 

Not only did I feel that I wasn’t alone, but I saw some sights I’d never forget.   The first table I saw was covered with papers containing graphic artwork.  They were images that looked like professional sketches and they all featured dead corpses.   Most of them featured dead bodies displayed in what appeared to be the main office for the journalism department .  All of the them featured their eyes and mouths still open as if they had witnessed something terrible before dying.  However, the most memorable one was not simply done with a pencil.  It was a picture of the ocean but all the water was painted red like a blood and the lifeless bodies of beach bums and tourists were floating around and being swept away by the waves. 

After that display, I walked to the other part of the room, through several rows and sections of books until I saw another set of tables.  This time there were no drawings to look at.  What I saw was an adult woman with long red hair.  Her hair was so strait and thick that it was like straw and it was covering her face.  She appeared to be staring at me but I couldn’t see her eyes.  I could see her lips and they were a dark red color.  She didn’t say anything to me but appeared to be drinking out of a glass vase.  The entire vase was filled with blood. 

I turned around and left as quick as I could.  Part of me wished she was a real vampire or a ghost but I knew she was someone like me.  She was an artist who worked alone.  If I ever saw her again I could supply her with more blood.  I just needed to get Trevor out of my dorm room.  His body was still under his bed. 

That’s where I put him after I stabbed him to death.

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©2012 John Kujawski

John has interests that range from guitars to the Incredible Hulk.  He was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and still lives there to this day.  You can hear him on the weekly podcast at www.comicbookshowdown.com.

What’s going on?

I close my eyes and rub hard, but when I finally peek out through slightly parted fingers, nothing has changed. I reach for the other side of the bed to wake my husband, but he isn’t there. He’s always an early riser, even on weekends.

I groan miserably. My head is throbbing and my mouth is parched. I really need to get a glass of water.

I think back to the night before as I slowly sit up. I went out to a nightclub with a couple of friends, but I don’t remember doing anything too crazy. Maybe a little alcohol. Definitely no drugs or anything like that. I remember meeting a man. A young, handsome man, too young to be giving me so much attention. I remember having a good time. The young man asked if I wanted to go back to his place, and I . . .

Refused? Of course I did. It would have been crazy not to. But for some reason, I can’t remember answering the question. In fact, the rest of the evening is a foggy blur that I can’t make out.

I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. I just need to get on with my day and let whatever it is pass . . .

Or at least that is what I tell myself. My heart thumps violently in my chest, revealing the true panic that dwells just below the surface.

What exactly is wrong with me?

I decide to go freshen up in the bathroom. I stand and walk a few steps, then stop. Something isn’t right. I hear myself gasp. My foot. I tore a ligament a couple of weeks ago in my kick boxing class. I’ve been limping with a vengeance ever since, not to mention enduring the constant throbbing. Now I feel nothing, and the limp is gone.

Incredible.

I stride across the red carpet into my red bathroom, flipping the light switch on and turning to look at myself in the mirror.

I expect to see the dark circles and puffy eyes that usually accompany a late night out with my friends. Instead, I look the best I have in years. I look young. Healthy. Even the web of lines around my eyes that I’ve been so upset about lately have vanished.

How can this be?

I remember how thirsty I am and twist the handle on the faucet. I scoop up the water that pours forth in both hands and bring it to my mouth, greedily gulping it down.

After a couple minutes, I shut the water off in frustration. If anything, I’m even thirstier than before.

I look back at my reflected self, and something catches my eye. Something I somehow missed before. Two small dots on the side of my neck. Dark red against my light red skin.

They look like bite marks.

I know what it means, or at least I think I do. But that kind of thing doesn’t exist. Does it? It occurs to me that the marks on my neck and everything else I’ve experienced since awakening suggest otherwise.

As I wonder this, a few of the blurry memories from last night suddenly come back to me in startling clarity. I recall that, against my better judgment, I did return with the young man to his place–a small apartment. I remember snuggling with him on his sofa, making out and groping each other a little. I remember liking it. He started to nibble at my neck, and it tickled, but I didn’t mind at all.

Then he bit me. . . .

I try to scream, but my throat has constricted. The panic I felt before is no longer contained beneath the surface.

What do I do?

As if on cue, I hear the door to my bedroom open. I look out and see my bald, overweight husband standing just inside our room. An odd look steals across his face when he sees me. He recognizes that something is different.

I feel a strange attraction to him. This is particularly odd because I haven’t been remotely attracted to him in years.

My gaze slowly travels down to his neck–his flabby red neck. My thirst surges in intensity. I feel as if I will die if I do not have a drink soon.

Terrible understanding floods my mind as I start to move toward him. I can no longer help myself. I have to drink. It is a feeling more terrible than anything I could ever have imagined.

He has no idea. He smiles and opens his arms wide, wrapping them around me in a tight embrace. I try to resist, but it is no use. My mouth opens wide, closing in.

And I bite.

My thirst slowly fades as he falls limp in my arms.

Even though my eyes are shut tight, all I see is red.

________________________________

©2012 Paul Miller

Paul Miller lives near Dallas, Texas with his beautiful wife and three small children. He writes in what free time he can find. His work has appeared in Every Day Fiction and Death Head Grin.

That morning, the light coming through the window in Henry’s room looked strange. It changed from dark blue to bright yellow, as if the world outside was shifting from overcast to clear sky every few seconds. A few times the light even seemed to turn reddish, the way it sometimes looks during sunrise or sunset. Henry thought this might mean that it was raining outside – now he just wanted to stay in bed.

After laying still in his bed for a few minutes, Henry began to get the sense that someone else was in the room with him. He tried to think of who would be in his bedroom at this time in the morning, but nothing obvious came to mind. It could be one of his roommates looking for a textbook to borrow, or maybe his landlord trying to fix an electrical problem with one of the outlets. Henry waited for a few seconds, then tried to roll out of his bed and stand up, but when he attempted to move, he found that his body was paralyzed. He could move only his eyes and nothing else.

A panic washed over Henry like a cold sweat. He looked around the room as much as he could from the position he was in on his back. He could feel that someone was there with him; he just couldn’t see them.

Henry struggled to make any part of his body work. He stared at one arm and put all of his focus into moving it up and off of the bed, but nothing happened. Then he tried to wiggle one of his toes, but he couldn’t see or feel his feet, so he had no idea if it was working. Soon, he stopped fighting against the paralysis and tried to collect his thoughts.

He was still in a half-dream state and slightly confused about his settings. One thought at a time, he told himself. Where am I? I’m in my room. What time is it? He looked at the clock again; it read, seven-forty-three. Is there someone here with you? He slowly looked to the right, then the left, but hecouldn’t see anything except the clutter of his bedroom.

Then, as his thoughts began to focus,he realized that there was a weight on his chest. The more his thoughts moved to the weight on his body, the heavier it seemed to be, and soon he realized that the force pushing down on him was so great that he was having trouble breathing. Again, he struggled to move his arms, this time in a desperate, panicked attempt to move the object off of his body. After failing once more to make his limbs respond, he cleared his mind again and tried to make sense of what was happening to him. What could be on my chest? Nothing came to mind that made any sense. How much weight is this? It must be over a hundred pounds. The weight of a person.

Suddenly, all of Henry’s fractured thoughts came to a single, connected idea. He finally felt himself shift into a fully awakened state, and he realized what was happening. There was a person sitting on top of him. His vision focused, changing from the cloudy, blurred vision of someone who has just woken up, to that of his fully awake self. Then he saw her. She was dressed in dark black rags and her head was covered with long, matted hair, the same hue as her clothes. She was hunched over, perched on him like a bird in a tree. He could tell that she was looking directly at him, at his face, but he couldn’t see her eyes through her dark mass of hair.

Henry was overcome with fear, but no amount of struggling brought his body out of its frozen state. Terrified, he looked away from the woman, the only course of action he could take. Then the woman began to speak. Although her mouth was far away from Henry’s face, it seemed like shewas speaking directly into his ear. She talked quickly, and Henry could only make out a few phrases. “They’ll come here for you. They’re going to poison you.”

Then, he felt her arms began to move. She slowly reached down and placed her hands on the blankets that covered Henry’s body, and then with one quick motion, she pulled them off of the bed while simultaneously removing her weight from atop his body.

Henry leapt forward. Only after a few seconds did he realize that he was no longer paralyzed. He looked around the room wildly, trying to spot the woman in case she had shuffled off into a corner, but she wasn’t there. One part of him couldn’t make sense of what had happen, but another part knew it had been a dream. Nothing else made any sense. He looked at the blankets, which were laying on the floor. They could have fallen off the bed in the night, or maybe he had kicked them off when he jolted up. He laid back down and took in a few deep breaths. He must have been holdinghis breath during the dream; his shortness of breath was the only part of the experience that he knew was real. After he calmed down, he looked over the clock next to his bed. The red numbers read: 7:44.

___________________________________

©2012 LB Thomas

LB Thomas lives in Bozeman, Montana. Heowns a Tennessee Walker Treeing Coonhound mix named Zumbi.

I get up from the kitchen table and close the window. She’ll still be able to hear him, but maybe muffling his voice will let her keep things together a little better. I wonder for a moment whether I should acknowledge the voice, make a feeble excuse about it being too cold, or say nothing at all The kettle flicks off, saving me from having to address the situation. “I’ll make coffee,” I say. She doesn’t say anything in reply, just takes another drag on her cigarette, her shaking hand spreading ash over the court papers. I spoon Nescafe and coffeemate into a cup.

“There’s no fresh milk,” she mumbles. ‘It went off on Tuesday and he’s- I mean, I haven’t been able to get to the shops. Sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” I say, bringing over a mug of the best coffee I could make in the circumstances.  ”There. Now, I think it’s time we talk about what you want to do next.”

“Sheila! Come out here now!” He’s really bellowing now. Sheila starts to stand. I put a hand on her arm.

“You don’t have to do what he tells you,” I say. “He can’t come in here, and you don’t have to go out there.”

She looks towards the closed window like she doesn’t believe me, like she’s breaking a law by not going to him right now.

“Sheila, you need to listen to me,” I say. “The court appointed me to assess your situation and I have done. From what you have told me, you have grounds for separation. There’s already a temporary restraining order, and I’m happy to make it permanent, but it has to be your decision.”

She looks at me in silence for a long time, and then breaks her gaze, picking up the mug of coffee and staring into it. This is when I think it’s all lost. The clock will run out, she’ll let him back in, and she’ll never get away.

“He was kind to me,” she says, eventually. “He was older than me, and handsome, and funny, and he was kind to me. I wanted to be with him more than anything else. I did anything he asked, went with his friends because he asked me to. I forgave everything, looked past the pain he caused me and the things he made me do. It wasn’t until I found out about the other women that I’d had enough. I want him out, Mr Rothesay. I want him gone from my life.”

“Then he’s gone,” I say. I take a foolscap folder from the table in front of me and head towards the door. I don’t think she looks up as I go. It’s a first floor flat, so it takes me a minute or so to get outside. He’s standing on top of her car, denting the bodywork. His shouts are much louder once I get outside, and I start to appreciate how good the wards on her windows are.

“It’s over, Vincent,” I say. “She’s made her decision.” He looks at me with disdain, an expression with a comfortable home on his face. He doesn’t seem much older than eighteen until you see his bloodshot eyes. It’s no surprise that he and his friends wear sunglasses at night.

“It’s not over,” he says. “The silly bitch will come round, and when she does I’ll remind her about this inconvenience. I’ll remember the idiot who put her up to it, too, Rothsay.”

I ignore him and pull a document from the folder. “Vincent Campbell Montague Lestrade,” I begin, “formerly known as Norman Tyson. Under the terms of the truce between the Vatican and the Blood Altar, I hereby expel you from the presence and properties of Sheila Longworth, from this moment and in perpetuity. I nullify any claim you have to her as your thrall, dispel any glamour placed upon her, and restrain you from entering her presence or her lands. I do so by the power vested in me as provost of the United Church.”

I hold the document out to him. He takes it, and in the same moment grabs the lapels of my jacket, pulling me close to him. “You’ve made a big mistake, Enoch Rothsay,” he snarls. “Do you have any idea who my sire is? One word from him and your Church would renounce you entirely, and I’d have you as my thrall bitch within a day.”

“You’ve made a mistake too,” I say. “You’ve forgotten that the property line includes the car park.” I knee him in the balls as hard as I can. As he doubles up on the ground, I kick him in the teeth. It’s probably the only chance I’ll ever get to do this to someone this powerful, and I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t enjoy it. Six feet away from here, on the public road, he’d be able to rip my arms off without breaking a sweat. On disinvited land, he’s weak as a kitten. He crawls away, spitting blood and - I note with satisfaction - teeth.

When he gets beyond the property line he starts yelling obscenities. I don’t hear a thing, I’m already heading back inside to give Sheila the good news. This probably wasn’t a good idea. Vincent wasn’t lying about how powerful his sire is. Questions will be asked of my higher-ups’ higher-ups, and I’ll be lucky if I escape with just a dressing down and one more creature on the streets that hates me. Still, it was worth it. You can’t always show restraint.

_________________________

©2012 Ian Rennie

Ian Rennie is a writer of novels and flash fiction who currently lives in Cambridge, England.  His work has previously been published by the flash fiction site 365 Tomorrows, and featured on the Voices Of Tomorrow podcast.  He maintains the occasional podcast 4 Dimensional Radio. http://4dradio.podomatic.com/

It moaned loudly as it pursued them through the graveyard. It was hard to believe that only moments ago it had been one of them.

“It’s still coming,” Jimmy cried.

It moved swiftly, with the greatest of ease. Its howling screams of pain and rage pierced their ears. It was truly a spawn of hell and earth.

“It isn’t too much further; we have two keep on going!” Allison screamed.

“Let’s just kill it!” Jimmy yelled furiously.

“We can’t take that chance; we have to keep going.” Allison cried out at him.

The hellish demon continued to moan as it quickly chased them. They had all once called it a friend, but now it was no longer even really a person. Now it was something more, something sinister, and something beyond human. This young body was now possessed by something evil. Its abilities were far more than they could understand. Its body, once so full of life, was now diseased and turning gray. Its eyes were red and as bright as a headlights. A disgusting thick foamy liquid slowly seeped out of its mouth, as it moaned again and again.

The tip of Jimmy’s boot smacked against the edge of a tombstone causing him to fall down, slamming his face into another tombstone. Blood splattered from Jimmy’s mouth.

“Keep running!” Jimmy cried from his blood soaked mouth.

Before Jimmy knew it, the demon was upon him. It wheezed as its bright red eyes gazed down on him. Before Jimmy could even respond, it began to scratch and claw at his face, and then let out a devilish cackle.

Jennifer looked back as she huffed and puffed, forcing her legs to continue moving. It was very hard for her to see what was happening to Jimmy, but she knew he was lost. The hellish spawn had gotten him and there was nothing anyone could do now.

An enormous feeling of excitement came over both Jennifer and Allison as they exited the cemetery. They knew that this would not stop the demon, but now they would be in a little bit more familiar territory. All they had to do now was cross an open field, run up a steep hill, and hopefully find the rest of their group.

Halfway across the field, they heard the demon scream out its agonizing cry of pain. Jennifer screamed out loud when she heard the demon behind them. This had gone on far too long; it had to end soon. It was not long before they came to the hill and began to climb forward, pushing their feet into the soft ground with great force. If they could make it to the top of the hill and find their group, they just might have a chance of surviving.

Allison glanced back to see the demon gaining speed on them. But it showed no sign of slowing down, even for the large hill. Allison had no intention of giving up; she had been through far too much to give up now.

Finally they popped up over the hill to see the other members of their group waiting for them.
“It’s coming, it’s coming!” Jennifer screamed.

Lloyd immediately grabbed his 12-gauge Remington shot gun, and waited for the demon to come into sight.

Once the despicable creature came into view, Lloyd’s worst fears came true. The demon had taken possession of his wife Stephanie. For a brief moment Lloyd studied its fiery red eyes. Then he fired a single shot at its face, blowing off the back of its head in the process. Lloyd would, of course, later grieve for his wife, but the thing he just killed was not his wife. It was sent here from hell; it was only using his wife’s body.

Lloyd understood that what was once, would never be again.

___________________________________

©2012 Martin Zane

Over the course of time there have been changes, namely some farms have disappeared and been replaced by one acre lots sold to city dwellers escaping the congestion and dirt that only a big city can produce.  But I have noticed that these new immigrants to the country have tried to fit in.  In fact, not a whole lot has changed.  There are still monthly meetings in the Grange Hall, and each fall we still hold a Pumpkin Festival.  It is always a big hit and it gives the new neighbors a chance to fit in with the old residents.  Overnight everything changed.

Our part of the state was invaded by big corporations drilling for natural gas.  A lot of my neighbors leased their land to these companies in return for some big bucks, and the next thing I knew big drilling rigs were brought in and work was begun.  At night the once clear nights were turned into Hades.  There was always a red glow burning in the distance.  I guess it was excess gas being burned off.  Then there was the noise and the big trucks roaring down country roads at all hours of the day and night.  That was just the beginning of our problems.  Then the water went bad.

For generations we have received our well water from an underground river.   We never had a problem till the drilling started.  I remember one Grange Hall meeting when agents from the drilling companies met with the locals.  The noise and truck traffic problems were brought up, but the main focus was the drinking water, or lack off.  The agents said that there was nothing wrong, but when one of my old neighbors pulled out a jug of her drinking water and poured some glasses full of the stuff and offered it to the agents, none of them would drink the water.  That was enough for me.  I could see the writing on the wall.  I had to leave my home, even if it meant getting pennies on the dollar for my property.  The problem was nobody wanted to buy.  I was struck.

Then things went from bad to worse.  There was always an odor when I turned on my tap, but one morning when I went to shave I turned the tap on and the water flowed red.  There was a terrible stench which lingered even after I turned the tap off.  I made a quick phone call to my cousins in the city and explained the situation.  They told me to get out of there and come stay with them.  That is what I did.

Now, I still had a headache from that swill that flowed out my tap.  I raced to my car with a suitcase and headed for the interstate.  On the way I saw horrendous things.  I saw a man walking up the road carrying an axe.  When I got closer I saw that the axe was dripping red.  He looked at me and I could see that his eyes were glazed over.  He was not in his right mind.  He raised his axe and made a move at my car.  He wanted to kill me.  I tore out of there and left him behind.  When I drove past the Grange Hall I saw bodies scattered about the building.  I drove on.  When I reached town there was utter chaos.  People driving like maniacs trying to flee, like me.  When I reached the interstate I saw the military and state police pulling in off the interstate.  They were wearing hazmat suits.  I got to the city alright with no more problems, but I had that headache for days.  I just wanted to hit somebody if anyone got too close. 

The situation in my old neck of the woods did make the news.  Public health officials said an outbreak of measles had broken out and the area was quarantined.  There was no mention of the drinking water running red.  I was not surprised.

____________________________

©2012 Henry Peter Gribbin