Pick Me Island

November 19, 2025October 12, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 2 Comments

When the plane had to make an emergency landing in the Bermuda triangle, twelve girls swam to the closest land mass. They had been on a school trip, heading to Puerto Rico, and engaging in “compulsory volunteer work” with Habitat for Humanity.

Eight of the girls had resigned themselves to learning basic construction. They had hoped to get tan and perhaps meet some cute local boys who would entertain them in the evenings. The other four wanted nothing to do with the group. They declared loudly and often that they were “not like other girls” and were proud of their uniqueness.

“I don’t think we will meet any boys here,” Amber said, scanning the small island.

“Unless they’re part of a rescue mission,” Beth added hopefully.

The group explored the shore, with the mission of finding drinkable water or food. They stumbled over large bones that did not look as if they belonged to fish.

“Is that predator or prey?” Callie asked one of the “not like other girls” members. This one routinely skipped the school uniform and instead wore band t-shirts featuring obscure musicians that no one else was cool enough to recognize.

The girl didn’t answer, which was her usual response.

After finding zero coconut trees, the group began to consider other means of sustenance. Darcy turned to the “not like other girls” who always wore a taxidermized squirrel pinned to her uniform sweater. “Can you catch us something to eat? Like a fish or bird or…egg or something?” she asked.

“I’m vegan,” squirrel girl replied.

Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Wearing that?” She pointed at the squirrel that was worse for the wear.

Squirrel girl shrugged. “I didn’t kill it. Besides, we came into the world alone, we exist alone, and we die alone. I suggest we split up.”

The eight “joiners” were losing patience with the “not like other girls” crew, but they did not want to split up either. They believed there was strength in numbers.

Emily suggested that they build a shelter. The eight joiners gathered fronds and sticks and attempted to craft a makeshift tent while three of the other four sat and stared at the horizon. The remaining “not like other girls” member practiced yoga poses which is what she had been doing in the aisles of the airplane before the sudden landing

Fern looked at the “not like other girls” member who was cradling the thermos she always carried. The girl proclaimed the thermos to be full of alcohol and would make a show of sipping from it during class.
“Let me have your thermos, for the fire,” Fern said.

“It’s only water,” the girl replied.

“Good, let’s reserve it,” Gina suggested. “It’s not much, but we can add to it if it rains. In fact, we should gather shells and other items to act as water containers…”

As predicted, eight girls searched for large shells and washed-up items to retain rainwater and four girls contributed nothing.

As the sun sank beneath the horizon and the island became bathed in darkness, sounds of a strange creature could be heard.

Eight girls hovered beneath their shelter, while the other four shrank into the foliage.

“That shelter is not gluten-free,” one of the four whispered, more to herself than to her companions. They listened as the grunts and snorts grew closer.

They smelled her before they saw her.

A girl-like creature lumbered toward them. She was the height of two of them put together. Her snout was long and twisted, like a caiman and her hair was alive with buzzing bees. Her skin was scaley and it glistened in the moonlight.

The eight girls in the shelter were in awe of the being. They stayed still and watched as she turned her attention to the four who were screaming from the foliage.

An impressive blood bath ensued, and as the creature pulled a large bone from her mouth, Hattie exclaimed, “She really isn’t like other girls.”

∼ Elaine Pascale

Reindeer Antlers

September 3, 2025October 12, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 5 Comments

“Myrna, wait!”

The old woman heard a familiar voice behind her, yet she continued to weave her way through the crowded parking lot to her car.

“You forgot your lemon.” Cheryl sounded much closer than she had before. Myrna silently cursed her frail legs and the fact that she had to move slowly to avoid falls. Her doctors warned her that at her age falls could be deadly. She believed that at her age most everything was deadly.

Myrna knew she could no longer ignore Cheryl. “I have no need for that or for you,” she spat. Literally. Droplets of saliva shot from her dentures which sat awkwardly in her mouth. She had lost weight recently, despite having a healthy appetite and, at 85, weight loss did not herald the joy it had in her 30s.

Cheryl stepped in front of Myrna, crossing her arms and examining her in a way that Myrna hated. All younger women gave her the same expression now: a sour look mixed with sympathy. “Did I do something to offend you? I try to be helpful to everyone in the neighborhood.” Cheryl smiled around her perfect teeth and straightened her hair beside her wrinkle-free brow. “My grandparents taught me that ‘we rise by lifting others’ and I have always lived by that.”

Cheryl’s smugness infuriated Myrna. Cheryl’s smugness and all that she represented—women who felt they were better than Myrna because they had careers and educations and advantages that came from being young in a time period which allowed for such things. “You humiliated me!”

“Humiliated?” Cheryl looked confused. “When? How?”

Myrna felt her cheeks burn. She thought back to the day when she had been walking with a friend and they had passed Cheryl’s house. Cheryl had been in her yard, seemingly watering plants, even though her hose was not turned on. “You…you…you made reindeer antlers at me!”

The confusion remained on Cheryl’s face. “Reindeer antlers?”

“Yes.” Myrna placed one of her thumbs against her temple and raised her second and last fingers. “Like this.”

Cheryl tilted her head, looking at Myrna quizzically. “My hands were just like yours? At the temple like that?”

“Yes, exactly like that.”

“Show me again, where were they?”

“Here!” Myrna put her hand at the side of her head.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely!”

“They weren’t…here?” Cheryl’s hand moved quickly. Myrna felt a lightning bolt of pain shoot across her forehead. Then she felt nothing at all.

***

We rise by lifting others…we rise by lifting others…we lift others to you, oh ancient one…

Myrna could hear voices chanting. Were they talking to her? She tried to rub her forehead but found that her arms were bound. The voices continued to talk about lifting and she felt the air move around her. Her stomach dropped as it had when she had ridden the old wooden roller coaster at the beach.

Myrna opened her eyes to discover that she was tied, crucifix style, to upright wooden pallets. She had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was in a cavernous concrete room, like a warehouse.

We rise by lifting others…accept the sacrifice at our hands, oh ancient one…

Myrna turned her head to see an old man beside her. She recognized him; he was often at the pharmacy when she was picking up her medication. They had exchanged complaints seasoned with humor about the plethora of pills they needed to wake up each morning. They had compared aches and pains and laughed at how old age had snuck up on them. No complaints or pleasantries would come from this man’s mouth again, as his throat had been slit and blood poured from it as if from a garden hose.

Garden hose…Myrna remembered that she had been talking to Cheryl in the parking lot. As her vision cleared, she could perceive the chanting people. They wore robes that covered their faces and bodies, only their hands were exposed. They caught the old man’s blood in chalices and then poured the blood into a golden tub in front of Cheryl. It was clear they had been addressing Cheryl; she was the ancient one.

Myrna watched as Cheryl rubbed the old man’s blood into her skin. With each application, her skin appeared younger and more vibrant.

“Better than Botox,” Cheryl said, smiling with her wrinkle-free lips.

Myrna gasped, which garnered Cheryl’s attention. “My old friend…but still younger than me,” Cheryl laughed.

That makes no sense, Myrna thought, as she tested the ropes that bound her arms. Even if she were still a young woman, she would not have been able to fight her way free from the pallet.

Cheryl pointed a manicured finger at Myrna. “These wrinkles appeared in the short time I spent talking to her.” Cheryl rolled her eyes. “Normally one sacrifice would be enough, but because she rambled on and on, I have to make it two.”

“Yes, exalted one,” the robe wearers chanted.

Rambled on? “But you, you did something to me!” Myrna tried to remember what happened in the parking lot. Instead her mind went back to the day she had encountered Cheryl on her walk. She realized that she walked by Cheryl’s house often. She realized she had walked by Cheryl’s house for years, maybe twenty years, yet the woman looked no older than when they had met. “You…you made those reindeer antlers,” Myrna spat, not knowing what else to say. Fear had overtaken her. She did not want to meet the same conclusion as the man from the pharmacy.

“’We rise by lifting others’,” the devotees chanted. They lifted Myrna higher, tilting the pallet so that she was bent over a large bucket.

“Antlers?” Cheryl laughed. “Those aren’t antlers, they’re horns. As in devil horns.”

One acolyte produced a large knife and Myrna screamed.

Cheryl tsked. “That’s the problem with this younger generation, they never know when to be quiet.” She rubbed blood into her décolletage. “And when to keep their copious complaints to themselves.” Her smile grew wide. “As I said, ‘I try to be helpful to everyone in the neighborhood.’ I was just returning your lemon. If you had simply taken it then…we wouldn’t be here.”

∼ Elaine Pascale

The Motorcycle

June 18, 2025March 1, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 3 Comments

The motorcycle was a classic: unique and sleek. She had fallen for Drew at the same time he had acquired it and it became a physical manifestation of their love. Their courtship had involved ambling rides through the countryside. The bike had participated in their honeymoon, towing camping gear in the cargo sidecar. And most weekends of their marriage had included a leisurely ride. When they stopped at the dens of serious riders, they were not rebuffed. She loved when the hulking, hairy men called the bike “cute” and patted it as if stroking a kitten on its proffered furry cheek.

The motorcycle provided relief from a steamy day. It provided freedom. She was accustomed to sitting behind him, to wrapping her thighs around his hips and leaning into him as they wound their way through villages and farmlands. She had been a remora, covering his back and his need for company, while he led the campaign. They had seen places that they convinced themselves went completely ignored by the strait-laced in their coffin-like cars.

Then a coffin became something in their lives.

When Drew’s diagnosis became unavoidable, she had asked him what she should do with the motorcycle after… . There were no words for after after. She was convinced she would have no life after after.

Drew had requested that she keep it. He seemed convinced that she would be able to handle it, handle all of it—the motorcycle, his death, her loss—on her own.

After Drew passed, she could barely bring herself to enter the garage. So much of it was him. The tools, the exercise equipment, the motorcycle. She eventually was able to enter so that she could bestow some of his possessions on his friends. Then, she truly resided in the after. He was gone, most of his things were gone, and she was alone.

On a day that was too gorgeous to ignore, she decided to ride the bike. Drew had convinced her years ago to get her license, but she had rarely been in control of the vehicle. She wanted to feel that freedom again, she wanted to stop living with death and feel alive again.

She circled the motorcycle, noticing that at times her shadow split into two. And at those times, it looked like Drew’s shadow had joined her own, but that was just her mind playing tricks on her.

She put on her helmet and straddled the bike. She felt only the humming seat between her legs. This was so different from when his body used to be in front of her, acting as a shield, acting as a comfort.

She decided she deserved a ride into the mountains. She hadn’t been since prior to his diagnosis and the leaves were at their most colorful point. At times, and at turns, she swore she could still feel Drew, his solid hips, his long back, his ribs swimming in and out with his measured breath. It had been so long since she had felt him physically that this phantom sense made her ache.

She swore she could smell Drew and wondered if he had ever worn her helmet by accident. The smell increased the aching which had developed into a throbbing sensation. The warm, leather seat reminded her of his large hands and she sped up the bike with a sense of urgency that was all in her mind.

She saw lights flashing in the mirror on her handlebar and a quick “blip” from a siren behind her told her she had to pull over.

She slowed the bike onto a shoulder of empty road that was shrouded by trees. As the wind blew through the foliage around her, her shadow shifted and broke, splitting into two again.

She removed her helmet so that the police officer could see her face and she stepped off the bike.

She watched him approach and noticed that he looked up and down the road as he got closer. His eyes were covered with reflective sunglasses and he had a neck gaiter pulled up over his nose and mouth.

“Beautiful day,” he said through the gaiter. He was wearing leather gloves and a knitted skull cap pulled over his hair. She found the cap and gaiter odd and hoped he would give her a ticket and quickly leave.

He stood and looked at her without speaking, which, again, she found odd.

“Why was I pulled over, officer?” she asked quietly.

He shook his head slowly and made a “tssk” sound. “That’s kind of rude, isn’t it? I asked you if you thought it was a beautiful day and you completely ignored me. Only interested in getting down to business, aren’t you? Completely rude.”

Her stomach dropped, registering how alone they were. No one had seen them pull over; no one would hear her call out on this deserted road.

He reached in his pocket and as her eyes followed his hand, she realized his pants were swollen at the crotch.

She remembered a report on the news about a rapist impersonating a cop.

Before her mind could process these thoughts, his arm was around her neck and he dragged her away from the bike. His free hand held a knife which he pressed into her side.

“You are going to step back into the woods with me,” he instructed, “and you are going to keep quiet, or else this knife will find its way across your throat.”

She struggled against him, but his hold was tight.

Through tears, she watched her shadow as he dragged her. She had not one shadow, but two. The smell of Drew was stronger than ever.

The fake police officer shoved her to the ground, the knife sharp against her throat.

“Please,” she begged, “I haven’t seen your face, you could let me go.”

He laughed. “And why would I do that?”

She saw the motorcycle lights come on over his shoulder and heard the hum of its motor. “Because…we are not alone…”

∼ Elaine Pascale

The Discharge

April 2, 2025January 31, 2025 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 3 Comments

The first thirty days after the world ended were the worst, as those days were filled with blame.

Lynette had asked Robbie to help with stockpiling. Just as with the blizzards, as with the hurricanes, and with the tornadoes, he had waited too long and shown little to no effort in trying to accumulate food or water. That had left them to the rations that Lynette had been able to scrounge which had been pitiful at best. Prior to the virus, the stores were veritable wastelands due to trucks being stuck on the wrong side of the bombed bridges. Then, the virus had struck and the peninsula was quarantined.

Lynette had just declared Robbie “the death of them both” when he showed her the vomit gun.

“We will get what we want and it won’t cost us a thing or put us in any danger.” He grinned around yellowing teeth.

“Where did you even get that?”

“Dark web.”

She scowled, partly because his breath was bad and partly because she could not believe that she was stranded with this idiot. “When I asked you to prepare…to get us ready for quarantine…you went to the dark web and got some…gun?”

“Not just a gun, a vomit gun.”

“I heard that the first time.” She eyed the remaining products in her kitchen and estimated that they had five days of food remaining if they consumed only a few crackers and pretzels each day. The fruit and vegetables had gone quickly. They had gobbled all produce before it could spoil. They had no meat, not even canned fish, as domesticated and game animals had shown the effects of the virus first. “And how will a vomit gun help us, exactly?”

“I’ve been thinking…,” he began and Lynette hated that he started most conversations that way. Mainly because she knew that any type of thought was a struggle for him. “We shoot people with it.” He was more excited about this prospect than he should be. “They weaken, like they have the virus, or worse, and we steal their stuff. They are so busy yacking their brains out, that they can’t fight us.” He snapped his fingers. “It’s that simple.”

***

They invaded the community three blocks away from them first. The residents lived behind a gate; the gate was to keep people like Lynette and Robbie out. Even without a vomit gun, their type was not welcome in the high income community.

Robbie had not practiced with the gun. His ineptitude was evident when the gun jammed and they were chased to the other side of the gates, prodded by pitchforks like the monsters they appeared to be.

“The death of us both,” Linette reminded him as they ran back to their home, where Linette was forced to further divide the remaining crackers and pretzels.

***

The following day, Robbie set up target practice in their yard. He aimed for the unstable bullseyehe had constructed from an old sheet and Linette’s lipstick.

“I don’t understand it,” he called to Linette, “there’s no vomit.”

She leaned out the window and pointed to the sheet. “There is no mouth or esophagus or stomach on that sheet, either. Where would the vomit come from?”

Robbie considered this for a moment and then a sparkle reached his eyes. He crouched low to the ground and waited. Lynette went back to fussing over rations and contemplating ways to stretch them further when her tactics were interrupted by a bellow from Robbie.

“Well I’ll be!” he shouted. “It works, Lynette! Our problems are solved!”

She peered out the window to see a rabbit on its side. “What did you do?” she asked with alarm.

Robbie looked at the creature with a combination of regret and relief. “I guess it was too strong for him. It’s meant for people. But we know it works.”

He thought he would cheer her up by adding, “I’ve been thinking…we go back out tonight. In the meantime, we can clean and eat this, right?”

***

Lynette begrudgingly put on black clothes, a black knit hat, and a mask to return to the gated community with Robbie. The prior failed invasion informed this attack: they knew to have the gun ready.

They entered a lavish home by having Robbie wiggle through the dog door. He had lost enough weight that he had room to spare. Once inside, he unlocked the door for Lynette.

He started to explain something, but Lynette put a finger to her lips. She hoped they would be able to steal some supplies without notifying the homeowners. She had a bad feeling about the gun.

Robbie nodded and they headed to the kitchen. Lynette found boxes of pasta and bags of beans that she quickly slipped into the pillowcase she had brought. She was so engrossed in pillaging that she failed to notice Robbie stiffen beside her.

“What are you doing?” a man’s voice yelled. Lynette turned to see an older couple standing at the entrance of the kitchen. The man held a baseball bat and the woman cowered behind him.

“I’m hungry,” Robbie responded, as if this were a suitable answer to the question. He aimed at the man and pulled the trigger of the vomit gun. Within moments, the gun’s moniker rang true and the man bent over, clutching his abdomen and splattering vomit on the linoleum floor.

His wife shrieked and Robbie shot her, too. Lynette could not believe that two normal sized humans could produce so much vomit.

“Help.” The woman struggled to get the words out. She and her husband were obviously weakened and any type of ailment could prove deadly in this new world.

“Robbie, we gotta go,” Lynette said, finding it difficult to take her eyes off the failing couple.

“I’ve been thinking…. “ Robbie turned to Lynette, pointing the gun at her. “There isn’t enough here for me and you. I mean for long-term survival.”

Lynette had time to register that the couple had fallen to the floor and seemed eerily still when Robbie pulled the trigger. She realized she had been wrong; he wasn’t the death of them both.

∼ Elaine Pascale

The Whistler

January 15, 2025December 11, 2024 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 9 Comments

The scouting trip had been in the works for months. What had not been planned was the loss of a scout on the second day of the trip.

And not just any scout, they had lost Hayden. Hayden was the troop member who needed the most attention. Each event the scout master planned was precluded with warnings from Hayden’s mother. Hayden had allergies, Hayden had diagnoses and conditions, Hayden required eyes on him at all times.

Hayden was special.

Hayden’s mother’s anxiety had grown with the approach of the camping trip. She had called the scout master daily to remind him that Hayden needed to take his Ritalin. She had explained that he needed his sleep mask and ear plugs even in the deepest, darkest woods. She had produced his inhaler and backup inhaler.

She reminded him that Hayden was special.

Despite Hayden’s mother, or maybe to spite her, the scout master determined to treat Hayden as if he were any other boy as the troop set off into the woods.

That first morning had been accompanied by clear blue skies and a bright sun. Backpacks brimming with supplies and snacks, the boys had told “Whistler” stories as they ascended the mountain.

“If you hear a whistle, run for your life!”

“He will skin you alive!”

“He will eat your eyeballs!”

“He carries a sack of his victim’s bones on his back!”

Hayden had his ear buds in so he did not join in the spinning of tales. His mother had insisted that Hayden needed to listen to nature sounds to ground him. The scout leader had suggested that Hayden listen to the nature sounds of the actual forest they would be walking through, but that recommendation was derided because Hayden was special.

Midway up the mountain, the troop stopped for lunch. This was the first time Hayden disappeared.

”Hayden…” the boys called up into the trees, figuring he had gotten the urge to climb.

“Hayden…” the boys called into the bushes, assuming he was hiding.

It wasn’t until they had finished their post-lunch granola bars that Hayden reappeared.

He pointed at a wrapper and announced, “Those are made in a facility that processes nuts.”

The other boys laughed at the word “nuts.”

“Hayden, where were you?” the scout master asked.

The boy said nothing as he hiked his backpack higher, causing the interior items to rattle.

***

Despite the scary tales they had been telling all day, the boys had fallen asleep at a decent hour from the fatigue of hiking. The scout master was awoken with rising shouts to accompany the rising sun.

“Hayden is gone!”

“He’s gone!”

“The Whistler got him!”

The scout master looked in the empty tent and then asked, “Are you sure he is gone? Can he hear us calling? Are his ear plugs in?”

The boys exchanged quizzical looks.

“Let’s not notify his mother just yet.” The scout master feigned composure. He said this despite knowing how Hayden’s mother was, or maybe because he knew how Hayden’s mother was.

They spent the day scouring the woods, looking for Hayden. That night, no one slept. The boys reported that the sound of whistling kept them awake. They were certain that the Whistler was coming to collect their bones.

“He will drag us around the mountains forever!”

“We will never make it home!”

“Poor Hayden!”

The boys claimed they heard the rattling of bones coming from the bushes. They noted shadows moving through the forest.

“We have to leave!”

“He is after us!”

“We have to face Hayden’s mother at some point.”

The scout master was more afraid of Hayden’s mother than he was of the Whistler, so he asked for one more day to look for Hayden, agreeing to descend the mountain at the following daybreak.

***

The rising sun brought panicked whispers coming from inside the tent. The boys called for the scout master, “We can’t leave the tent; he is right outside, whistling.”

Despite knowing the troop would be worried, or perhaps to spite the troop, there was a whistler seated by the dying campfire, a very special one.

It was Hayden, whistling through his nearly empty inhaler and stripping unidentified hides, stashing the bones in his backpack.

∼ Elaine Pascale

Watch This

November 6, 2024July 10, 2024 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 3 Comments

The flea market had become a ritual. Greg and Lydia rarely found anything, but when they did, it was heralded as monumental. They called their excursions “fossil hunting,” and many of their finds were truly relics.

Some of the vendors at the flea market were regulars and the couple barely gave their wares a glance. Their apartment only had room for a certain number of salt and pepper shakers or crocheted toilet paper concealers. They focused on the new vendors, and this week the nostalgic display in the corner captured their attention.

“This is so 80s,” Lydia whispered with reverence. She fingered a rack of fluorescent jelly bracelets.

Greg picked up a semi-inflated basketball. “Watch this,” he said, trying to spin the ball on his finger. He managed to nearly clear the trinkets from a nearby table as the ball wobbled and he shifted to center it.

As Lydia was deciding between the lime green fingerless mesh gloves and the argyle leg warmers, Greg called to her, “Remember this?” He was elbow-deep in a bin of records. He pulled an album from the stack and held it up for them both to see. The cover was a hypnotic spiral. Staring at the spiral and relaxing one’s eyes would make the name of the band appear. “This is trippy.”

“That was the first one with a ‘Tipper Sticker’.” Lydia tried to remember what had been so offensive about it. But offensive was as bound to time and place as any other concept.

Greg lowered his voice, “Playing it backward would make a demon appear.”

She laughed. “Right.”

“Seriously. That is what happened to them. To the band.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “They died because their cocaine was poisoned with strychnine or something.”

“Where do you get your information? They were torn apart, long slashes on each of their bodies. Strychnine doesn’t do that.”

He dug in his pocket for some money while she typed into her phone. She turned the screen toward him. “Google says ‘poison’.”

“That’s what they want you to believe. You really think they would publish stories about honest-to-God demons?”

She shrugged “There is nothing honest about it. Just urban legend, but you do you.”

He turned the album over in his hands, inspecting the cover from all angles. “I am getting it.”

“We don’t have a record player.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s a relic. When archeologists uncover our apartment from beneath the meteorite that will crush us, I want them to find this psychedelic specimen and know that we were true connoisseurs.”

By the time they returned home, he had scrutinized every inch of the album. Each time he had a new idea about the Escher-esque cyclone on the cover. “That would be what a demon’s lair looks like, right?”

“I guess.” She tilted her head. “Looks like a demented fan with warped blades.

He nodded appreciatively. “That might be what got to the band: warped blades…something made those gashes on their bodies.”

“If you believe that rubbish.” She sighed. “It’s a shame that good old fashioned overdosing has lost its glamour.” She went into the kitchen to make them sandwiches for lunch. “Why would a band play their own album backwards?”

“Because they were in that sophomore slump. They needed another hit; they needed to keep the train rolling.” He pulled the vinyl from the cover. “Watch this,” he said as he spun the record clockwise on his finger while humming the theme song of the Harlem Globe Trotters.

“Wow. They should sell you at a flea market. Your references would be the oldest thing there.”

He began to spin it counterclockwise. “Bet I can make it play if I spin fast enough.” He gave the vinyl a few hard spins before putting his fingernail into a grove.

High decibel screeching came from the album.

“If that doesn’t call a demon, I don’t know what would.” He laughed, but she did not join in.

She felt clammy and dizzy. She began to saw through the hardened bread faster, believing her blood sugar level was dropping.

“Watch this,” he called again, spinning the album faster and making it wail with the placement of his fingernail.

“I…” She grabbed the counter with one hand, fearing she would fall to the floor without its assistance. She heard odd words coming from the record. The words were compelling; the words ordered her to do horrible things.

“Almost sounds like a chant,” Greg said, not noticing the change in Lydia. If he had, he might have been able to save himself.

The words built into a frenzy, a confusion of chaos, the verbal version of the album’s psychedelic cover. Her glowing, red eyes were focused on the knife she had been using on the bread. The chant was about the knife. It told her what to do with the knife.

“This is messed up.” Greg shook his head, believing this was all in fun.

Lydia could no longer remember who Greg was or what he meant to her. She could no longer remember where she was. Her mind was consumed with the knife and with the voices that were imploring her to use it.

The album whirled and the voices wove a powerful, insistent, and necessary story. Her hands felt far away and as if someone else were now in control of them. A part of her waged a war to keep the knife on the bread.

As the album continued to shriek, she lost the battle.

∼ Elaine Pascale

Trash Night

August 7, 2024June 5, 2024 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 6 Comments

Hugo watched from his bedroom window as his wife stuffed something into the garbage receptacle he had dragged to the curb hours before. It was 3:15am and she had done this on four subsequent trash nights.

The following morning he decided to ask her about her jaunt to the trash can. Having lived with her for nearly 30 years, he knew he could not speak to her before her first sip of coffee. She had a superstition about it. “Have you been having trouble sleeping? I woke to go to the bathroom and you weren’t in bed.”

She pretended to be concerned with cracking the shells on their eggs. “Hmm? What was that, honey?”

“Sleep. Are you sleeping well?”

“You know I’m going through the change. It complicates everything. It’s hard to sleep, eat, or find a comfortable temperature.”

That didn’t satisfy his curiosity about her weekly pilgrimage to the trash cans.

“Maybe we switch sides? I sleep closer to the door and you sleep next to the window…for the breeze.”

“Oh no, it’s bad luck for a couple to swap sides after so many years. We were just talking about that at book club.”

He stirred his coffee thoughtfully before responding. “I thought you talked about books at book club.”

She laughed. “We talk about all sorts of things.”

“Mostly complaints about husbands?”

“Of course not.” She appeared focused on flipping the eggs with precision. “We are supportive of each other’s marriages; we don’t want to promote negativity.”

He saw her spoon a powder onto the skillet. “That’s not salt…”

“Nope. Remember, I told you that Jody Hunter came back from the Amazon. She had an amazing trip.”

“And she brought you back seasoning?”

“Not just seasoning, this is a type of mushroom that is good for women of our age. It helps with mood and clarity.” Her eyes narrowed. “I am adding some to your eggs, too, as you seem to need a brain boost…you don’t remember us talking about this at all? About how she brought back some powders and tinctures and…spiritual icons.”

“Spiritual icons?” Hugo snorted. “She is filling you with nonsense.”

She didn’t answer but stared out the window at the utilities truck that had come to receive their collection.

***

The following week Hugo got up at 5:00 AM and went to the garbage bin as his wife snored soundly in bed. He pulled out several large bags; one had a pinhole leak that dribbled onto his slippers like a dotted line.

At the bottom of the bin was a small blue marble.

Is that what she has been hiding? Where did the marble come from and why did she need to throw it away in the dark of the night?

He took the marble and planned to question her over breakfast.

He waited for her to finish her morning affirmations; she had a strong belief that saying them influenced the outcome of her day. He noticed that she read from a notebook while reciting quietly to herself. She had been adding many new rituals to her routine.

“You know when I was a boy I collected the darndest things.” He began, watching her sip her coffee.

She nodded. “I know you had those matchbox cars. And the coins from when your dad travelled.”

“And marbles. Did I ever tell you about my marble collection?”

She raised an eyebrow. “No. That’s funny, I can’t remember you talking about a marble collection.”

He slapped his knee as if this were all a good joke. “Really? All these years and I never mentioned it?”

“Mustn’t have been a very good collection.”

“Au contraire! It was really something. I had marbles everywhere. Stashed away in jars and bottles. My favorite were the blue.” He pulled a marble from his pocket. “Like this.”

Her jaw dropped. “Where did you get that?’

“Why did you throw it away?”

“You can’t have that.” She snatched the marble from his hand and raced to the door. From the window he could see her looking down the street at the utility truck that had just taken their garbage and was driving away.

She was frantic, pacing in the street and rolling the marble between her hands.

When Hugo went to the door to tell her to come back inside, she rushed past him into the house and grabbed the car keys. Moments later, she pulled out of the driveway, with no concern for the fact that he needed to get to work and they shared a car.

Thirty minutes later, she returned.

“Don’t ever do that,” she snarled as she threw the keys to him. He had lived with her long enough to recognize when she was furious.

***

The next week, as he tried to fall asleep on trash night, he found her staring at him. “You did something very bad,” she said in a voice that was completely unfamiliar. “You need to learn a lesson.” She showed him a red marble. She then left the room. From the window, he could see her burying it in the trash.

The following morning they consumed a silent breakfast. Hugo went to work as usual, but by late afternoon, he felt sick, feverish. He took to his bed for days.

When he was finally able to leave his bed and go to the breakfast table, it was trash collection day again. He could not believe that he had lost an entire week. He scolded himself for being nearly as superstitious as his wife.

“I hope you’re happy,” he told her. “You planted that idea in my head of the red marble having meaning.”

She peered at him over her half-consumed cup of coffee. “Count your blessings. It could have been a black marble.”

“You’re crazy. I am not listening to any more of this.”

She shrugged. “Marjorie Baker put a black marble in her trash last night.”

He lifted a piece of toast, noting that the trash had already been picked up. “I give. What does black—”

His question was both cut off and answered by the sound of sirens racing to the Baker house.

∼ Elaine Pascale

Pockets

May 8, 2024March 18, 2024 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 2 Comments

“That’s adorable and it fits you like a dream,” Anna exclaimed with enough enthusiasm to equal her reaction to the last twelve dresses Tammy had tried on.

Tammy was not as easy to convince. “I just wish I weren’t a size 16.”

“What does the size on the label have to do with how it looks?”

Tammy rolled her eyes. “Easy for your child-less body to say. I’d still be a size 8 if I had stopped at two.”

“And miss out on the incomparable Miss Bliss? What would the world be without her!” Anna was often in the position of cheerleading for Tammy. “Some cause happiness, others impede it,” Anna’s mother used to say. Tammy was of the impeding nature. She would seek misery and wallow in it for as long as she could. Anna always prayed for a change in Tammy, or an end to their friendship that wouldn’t require Anna to do the dumping, whichever came first.

Tammy frowned at her reflection. “Bliss gave me an apron of fat…”

Anna had grown tired of her friend’s dour mood. She had offered to take Tammy shopping and buy her a new dress for her birthday. Anna had even hired a sitter. She hadn’t expected her generosity to be repaid with complaints.

She decided to move away from Tammy and walk about the store before she said something she would regret. She stopped at the rack that was the furthest from the dressing room and pushed through the hangers to alleviate her frustration. When she felt her composure return, she grabbed a handful of dresses in size 16 and returned to the dressing room.

“Maybe one of these?” Anna held her breath, hoping that Tammy would find something suitable so they could leave.

Tammy rifled through the garments, barely glancing at any of them. She was scowling and muttering and Anna feared they would be stuck in the store all afternoon.

Anna’s fears dissipated when Tammy gasped. “Where did you find this? I’ve been through every rack in here.”

“I know,” Anna muttered as Tammy hurried behind the curtain to try on the dress. When Tammy emerged, she had a large grin on her face.

“This one, right Anna? It’s perfect.” She ran her hands over her hips and squealed, “Pockets! It even has pockets!”

“That’s convenient.” Anna agreed. Pockets were indeed the Holy Grail of women’s fashion. Anna was currently rocking a fanny pack due to wearing jeans that had decorative stitching in place of pouches for stashing a debit card and cell phone.

“It’s so slimming.” Tammy continued to admire herself and Anna didn’t have the heart to tell her that the color was hideous and that it looked like a shapeless sack on her body. She was so relieved to finally be done with the shopping excursion that she believed there was no harm in allowing Tammy to see something different in the mirror.

***

The next time they met, Tammy was wearing the dress. They ran some errands at the mall and decided to grab lunch in the food court. Tammy stood in the middle of the horseshoe of food stands, hands stuffed in her pockets and said, “I don’t know what I want.” Anna was accustomed to this ritual, it usually consisted of a discussion of calories over flavor and a list of the prior month of meals Tammy had eaten. This was followed by wallowing in misery that they could no longer eat whatever they wanted. This time, Tammy added, “I wish someone would just tell me what to eat.”

The moment she finished speaking, a man from the kabob stand approached with a tray containing two plates full of food. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said, “we need to swap out our grill; this is what was left. We have to discard the food that no one has ordered, but I was wondering if you would like it…on the house.”

Anna’s jaw dropped as Tammy thanked the man and took the tray. “You just wished for food.”

Tammy nodded. “It’s been happening a lot. I put my hands in my pockets and then I get what I wish for.”

“Have you tried asking for money?” Anna joked.

Tammy’s expression changed. “I did. But I got something else, instead.” She nodded toward an empty table. “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

When it was time to leave, they could not find their vehicle. Tammy had driven so Anna had relinquished responsibility of remembering where they had parked.

“Don’t worry,” Tammy assured Anna and then put her hands in her pockets. “I wish I didn’t have to be bothered.”

Anna was about to remark on the vagueness of the wish when a man pulled up. “You called an Uber?” he asked.

“—No,” Anna began but Tammy was already climbing into the vehicle.

Instead of being her usual, miserable self, Tammy proceeded to flirt with the driver the entire trip. Anna was fed up and ready to leave once they arrived at Tammy’s house, but Tammy insisted she come in.

“Your behavior was crazy,” Anna scolded as she stepped over the threshold.

“What? That was harmless.”

Anna was about to remind Tammy that she was married when she saw the inside of Tammy’s house. There was a new large screen TV and a full-wall fish tank with exotic fish. The furniture was also new and clearly expensive.

“Where did this come from?” It was no secret that Tammy usually struggled to pay her bills.

“John.”

“He got a raise?”

“He died.”

For the second time that day, Anna’s jaw dropped. “What do you mean, he died?”

“I told you I wished for money, but then…”

Anna could not believe what she was hearing. “You made a wish and he died. And you did nothing? You told no one? You didn’t even have a funeral?”

Tammy shrugged. “I didn’t have to. I just put my hands in my pockets—”

Anna had heard enough. She went down the hall to the kids’ rooms, expecting to see luxury there as well. Instead, the rooms were cleaned out as if no one had ever lived there.

“Tammy…where are the kids?”

Tammy blushed. “It’s not really my fault. I made a wish…”

“To get rid of them?” Anna felt sick.

Tammy shook her head. “To be free of this burden.” She gestured to her body, circling her abdomen.

“You have to be careful! Your wishes are horrible. Stop wishing, and get your hands out of those pockets!”

Tammy’s face grew red with anger. She yelled, “For once I wish I could just be left alone! I wish you would go away so I could be as miserable as I want to be.”

Anna did not get the chance to look before she hit the floor, but she guessed that Tammy’s hands had been in her pockets.

∼ Elaine Pascale

Crusty Foulers

January 31, 2024January 4, 2024 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 3 Comments

The text contained only one word: Sorry.

Typically, their exchanges were memes that mutated into gifs that advanced to snarky comments that evolved into competitive complaints about family obligations, traffic, and the weather. This simple, plaintive word was cause for alarm.

Lana tried Facetiming. Then she tried calling. There was no answer. The last time they had been together had been only a few days before when they had returned from a girls’ trip. They had chosen a short cruise, all inclusive. Clara had wanted a few days of not having to cook or clean or worry about calories. Lana had wanted fresh air and stimulation that came from anything other than the fluorescent light above her cubicle and the hold music she so often faced during business calls. Most of all, they wanted time together, uninterrupted. An ocean voyage had checked all boxes and they had packed together on Facetime, approving each other’s choices of vacation-wear.

They had planned to “twin” for their final dinner on board. This was a tradition they had begun over two decades before. At that time, they would twin for school, linking arms and walking the halls as if conjoined. They would infuriate their teachers by going to each other’s classrooms and they drove their parents crazy with insisting that they have twin sleepovers, often squeezing into a shared and strained sleeping bag.

For their twin dinner, they had packed matching dresses, barrettes, purses, and shoes. Physically, they looked nothing alike, yet their twin costume announced to the world that they were inseparable. As they were applying their finishing touches, Clara pulled out a tube of lip gloss from her makeup bag.

“Where did you get that?” Lana eyed the tube that looked naked without a label.

“My evil stepmother.” Clara laughed. “The witch finally did something right.”

“The first time in what…when did he marry her? Fifteen years ago? Twenty?”

Clara smacked her lips together, the gloss adding a coral sheen. “Feels like forever ago. She put a spell on him, a curse on the rest of us.”

“Especially us crusty foulers.” Lana wore the name given to them by Clara’s stepmother with pride. The woman accused them of being barnacles: overly attached to each other and a discomfort to others. She, more than any other, hated their twin games and would often mutter curses beneath her breath as they strolled around arm in arm.

“She talks like a longshoreman.”

“Smells like one, too.”

As Clara’s stepmother never failed to share her disdain for their friendship, this present for their vacation was completely unexpected.

Clara handed the gloss to Lana and watched her apply it. “The funny thing is she said it was created especially for my skin tone. But it works on you, too, and we are opposite ends of the color palette.”

Lana shrugged. “Black magic.”

***

They had both cried when it was time to leave the ship. They had been sad about having to return to their stressful lives, and stressful jobs, and stressful commutes. They had been saddest about having to separate again. In the days after returning, Lana had felt a matchless form of loneliness. Then she had received the mysterious text.

Lana wished she could spend more time trying to reach her friend, but she had to get ready for work. As she showered, she noticed a pain beneath her breasts. When she tried to investigate with her hand, she was met with a surface so sharp that it lacerated her fingertips. Panicked, she rushed to the bathroom mirror, wiping the steam away, to see barnacles beneath each armpit and under her breasts.

“This is crazy,” she whispered. She could hear the stepmother’s voice, dripping with vitriol as she said “crusty foulers.” How could they have been so stupid, believing the woman had given a gift with good intentions.

Lana knew she had to see Clara; she had to confirm that the symptoms were real, that she wasn’t losing her mind.

As she drove the short distance between their homes, she saw the skin on the backs of her hands shift from smooth to crusted with protuberances.

Lana smacked her palms on Clara’s door, calling for her friend. It felt as if it took hours for Clara to answer, but it had only been minutes.

“Lana!” Clara’s face was swollen from crying. She flung herself into Lana’s arms. “I am so sorry. I should have known. That witch. I should have known.”

“We only called her a witch to be mean, we didn’t really think—”

“I did,” Clara murmured into Lana’s neck, which was now wet with tears. “I always suspected…the things that went on in that house, the way my dad changed. I just never had proof and now…” She pulled back as if to examine her chest but found that their torsos were fused tightly together.

“Oh my god, pull,” Lana instructed. She tried sliding a hand between them to see if she could unhook them the way a cat’s claws could be unlatched when snagged on material.

“I can’t,” Clara was able to take a step back with her right leg, but her left had fastened to Lana’s. “It’s getting worse.”

“I am going to push you and it might hurt,” Lana warned uselessly, as her right hand had become affixed to Clara’s back. She had an odd recollection of playing Twister when they were younger, and how they had toppled to the floor, tangled together and laughing. As children, they had wanted to be together always. They hadn’t imagined it would be this hazardous.

Lana tried to take a deep breath, but it was difficult as Clara’s chest weighed against her own. When she tried again, they fell, landing heavily and unable to do more than squirm against the carpet.

Their bodies were becoming less and less distinct as they combined into one crusty shell.

Clara’s forehead melded into Lana’s nose. “Remember how we didn’t want to leave the cruise ship? We didn’t want to say goodbye?” Clara asked, her lips still able to move.

“Yes,” Lana responded, but it was more of a last breath being expelled as their faces attached.

“Now we never have to.”

∼ Elaine Pascale

The Offering

November 8, 2023October 25, 2023 ~ Elaine Pascale ~ 4 Comments

Millie swept the sizeable bug onto the lawn that grew along the cottage. There was no movement from the insect, not even the twitch of an antenna. By all signs it was dead.

She noted that the bug looked like it was sleeping. Just as they say bodies in coffins, before eternal interment, look to be sleeping.

With her foot, she pushed the bug beneath the rose bushes that her grandmother had tended for decades. Greta had been spotted in her garden longer than the next oldest person in the village had been alive. No one knew exactly how old Greta had been at the time of her recent death. There had been a trio of birth certificates issued in her name, all with different dates of birth listed.

Recent death was the correct term, Millie thought. It was never clear if the woman had actually died during previous episodes or if they had only been “scares.” There had been times when the woman had stopped breathing. Her skin would grow cold, her body as hard as a stone. Her spine would appear to curl in on itself, just like the bug beneath the roses. Minutes would pass, sometimes an interval so long that she had to have crossed through the gossamer curtain between worlds. Then her breath would boldly return. Her eyes would flutter as if she had only awoken from a short nap. She would appear rejuvenated, revitalized. Some smirked and said that death was becoming on her. Some did not smirk and claimed she had sold her soul to the devil.

Millie gave the bug another shove and watched as it fell into a hole that had been crafted by a critter.

“Bon appetite,” Millie whispered to the snake or mole that was hidden in the hole, not knowing if it would accept an offering that was already dead.

Millie rubbed the scab on her hand before returning to her chores. She decided that it was perfectly proper to not offer a burial for a bug that she had only known as dead. It had been the appropriate effort: no words, no sentiment. The flowers from the bush would be enough of a tribute.

There had been a far greater tribute for her grandmother. Everything had been to her specifications.

“Not everything,” Millie whispered, rubbing her hand again. There was one aspect of the ceremony that her grandmother would never have agreed to. Then again, her grandmother had put her children and grandchildren through trials and tortures that they had never agreed to.

It wasn’t that the ceremony had been lavish, but it had been unusual. They had been granted a bed burial, even though those had gone out of style when ancient Greta’s great-great-greats had been above ground. The family had received permission solely because the town wanted to close the lid, so to speak, on the woman who had outlived all expectations, and also outlived the patience of all around her.

Greta’s bed had been handcrafted by her father and it was the one possession she had wanted to take with her. The bed had been lowered, by ropes and pulleys, into the massive hole first, its occupant lowered after. The sheet that had been wrapped around Greta had been the mechanism for gliding her into the earth. When the wind caught it, it fluttered like angel wings.

“What a devil,” one of Millie’s uncles had said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief as he stepped back from the open hole where his mother now resided. Millie did not know if he was talking about the energy required to bury her or about the woman herself.

A beautifully stained piece of wood was balanced between the elaborate ends of the sleigh bed so that Greta would not be visible for the remainder of the ceremony. The family members took turns approaching the hole and dropping dirt on top of the bed.

When they had returned to their seats, Millie’s youngest cousin whispered. “The bed squeaked.”

“The dirt landed on it; the dirt put weight on the mattress,” Millie explained.

“No, it squeaked, like when she would hear us whispering at night and get up to grab the switch,” Millie’s younger sister said.

“Hush, little one, it is all in your head,” Millie assured her.

“And there was knocking,” another cousin chimed in. “I heard her knocking on the headboard, just like she did when she wanted her tea in bed.”

“Hush now, that is grief talking.” The scar on Millie’s hand began to burn, just as if she were being branded by a hot iron. Again.

“If the tea was late, or not hot enough, it was the switch again.”

“Let’s not talk of that anymore,” Millie consoled,” those days are behind us.”

“That rap…her knuckles on the board, she pounded just as hard as any man. Just as hard as…”

“…the devil himself.” Millie hid her hand beneath her skirt, the seal that she had been branded with was glowing like live coals. Millie knew that the littlest ones were not imagining things. There had been sounds coming from the bed.

Greta’s final episode had been particularly lengthy, and Millie had been left in attendance. Millie had checked and rechecked vitals. She had held the mirror beneath the woman’s nostrils. She had felt the waves of coldness, ebbing and surging. And she had kept one eye on the switch on the wall, vowing that it would never be used again.

Millie knew what she knew, and she knew when it was time to alert the family. She also knew, when she saw the old woman’s finger twitch as she was being covered with the sheet, that it was time to make the offering.

She had also anticipated the children noticing sounds; she had anticipated the adults ignoring them.

While Greta was capable of making noise on her own, it wasn’t the old woman who had made the springs squeal and the headboard knock. It was the minion that had come to claim the offering Millie had made. She had made it, knowing it would not accept an offering that was already dead.

∼ Elaine Pascale