The Vengeance of His Evil

January 7, 2026December 28, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 2 Comments

Ted visited psychic surgeon Dr. Munstre Croon after relentless daily pressure headaches pounded the side and top of his head. Tad’s own doctor diagnosed stress and tension with possible depression and hypochondria “you don’t need a specialist,” she said.

“If you won’t help me,” Tad responded, “I’ll find my own cure. Pills aren’t the answer here.”

Sally, the janitor at Ellis and Company Insurance where Tad worked as supervisor, gave him Croon’s name. “This man’s a unique psychic healer.” she told him, “He will charge five thousand dollars cash, but he will solve all your ills.”

Tad wondered for a moment why Sally was being so nice. He always criticized her cleaning because she kept leaving half full wastebaskets all over the office and never scrubbed under the fridge. Tad gave her a written reprimand and announced that the next time she forgot to thoroughly sanitize the wall behind the couch she’d lose her job. “But thanks for the doctor tip,” he told her, “I haven’t tried the psychic angle, but I’ll do anything to get rid of this pain.”

Ellis and Company had hired Tad to get rid of all its unproductive employees so it could cut costs, and he’d been firing a lot of people. Nan, the old boss’s secretary was three months from retirement, but Tad dismissed her anyway, “you’re too set in your ways,” he said.

She pleaded and cried “I’ll lose my pension,” but Tad explained that the company couldn’t keep “dead wood.” She picked up all her family photos and ran crying from the room. Sally gave her a long hug and they whispered together. Tad thought “I’ll keep an eye on that janitor.”

Tad’s headache drilled into him as he sat in Dr. Croon’s office waiting for the healer. Eventually, the Doctor appeared, a very short round faced fellow with big sad eyes. “Sally said you have bad pain in the cranium,” he said, in a low and barely perceptible voice. “I’m sure she told you my cost.”

“I don’t care,” said Tad. “No one else will help me.” He was raking in the dough in his new position as assistant to the executive director, so had no problem passing the doctor five thousand dollars in small bills. “Cheap compared to the regular rip off artists,” he said.

“Let’s begin our assessment,” nodded the Doctor, as he carefully placed the bills in a paper bag, and then carefully placed both his hands on the sides of Tad’s head, as gently as he’d handled the money.

“Hmmm,” he whispered. “Please put on these glasses.”

He stepped back and handed his patient some fake-jewel encrusted specs from a gold case. Tad pulled them on.

“Jeezus,” he said. “What the hell is that?”

“Most glasses look out. These are looking in,” Dr. Croon said. “What do you see?”
“A giant grey and brown blob!”

“That’s your brain. What else do you perceive?”

“Wow, it’s pulsating… and there’s something on it!”

“Hmmm” Dr. Croon put his hand up to his client’s ear. “Now what?”
Tad peered closer with his reverse glasses and exclaimed “Something’s climbing around in there! It’s got suckers!” Tad gasped.

“Hah!” nodded Croon. “I knew it! Does it look like a devil?”

“Well, it’s got spines and omigod, it’s staring back at me… it’s got no eyes!” Tad ripped the glasses off as his head pounded.

“Yes,” said Dr. Croon. “You’re possessed with an extraordinary type of cancer.”

“Omigod, Doctor, how did that happen?”

“Well,” Croon took out a huge pair of curved forceps, at least two feet long. “Everyone’s born with a seed of evil, and while some extinguish that seed with good acts, others feed it with bad ones.” He clicked the forceps. “Do you want me to take the demon out?”

“Oh, indeed!”

“The tumour has grown very large,” Dr. Croon concluded. “You must have done a lot of bad things.”

Tad thought of all the hard decisions he had to make in his life. “A man needs to be tough to succeed,” he thought. “Sometimes he has to be ruthless.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have disowned my son,” Tad told the doctor, “but he did marry trash.” As if in response, needle like agony squeezed its way through his eyeballs, and Tad thought of the demon sucking his brain. “Doctor,” he moaned. “I want this to stop.”

“Well,” replied Dr. Croon. “Then we should go ahead with the operation?”

“Certainly,” Tad nodded as enthusiastically as he could.

“Sit right there.”

Dr. Croon took his giant forceps and stuck the ends inside each of Tad’s ears. The forceps fitted neatly over Tad’s head, and Croon moved the points further in. “Hmmm,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen such a huge devil tumour.” He adjusted his tool and tapped the forceps on the table to remove the ear wax. “In order for this method to succeed,” he explained, “You must tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done; get it out there, and the demon will show itself”

Tad thought of all the rotten lies he’d told, all the firings, all the foreclosures and property seizures he’d ordered when he ran a loan company, but those weren’t the worst things. Tad wasn’t sure he should tell Dr. Croon, but he wanted the pain to end.

“I killed a man,” Tad said. “In the South African jungle, when I served in the army twenty-five years ago; he was injured, and his wound became badly infected.”

“He was one of yours?”

“Yes. I was the patrol sergeant when this stupid guy was holding us back from getting out of there, moaning and crying, he acted like such a pussy. It was gangrene, sure, but he endangered everybody with his noise.”

“So you killed him?”

“I strangled him in secret away from the others. It had to be done. The enemy might hear him and discover our position. Also, we were out of morphine.”

“Well,” the Doctor frowned and rubbed his round stubbly chin. “That fellow is the main demon in your head right now; it’s your worst sin, fed huge by all the others.”

He adjusted the forceps and commanded “Put on the glasses.”

Tad lifted his specs.

“See how fat that sin is.” Dr. Croon insisted.

Tad gasped, witnessing the living tumour behind his eyes, and perceiving the demon’s attached suckers pulsating on his brain. The devil twisted its horny head, showing hollow skull bones and the demon face like the soldier Tad killed, mouth slack jawed in the moment of death. Tad saw huge growths and lumps pulsating all over the demon, and the being’s huge gut “all your other sins are stuffed into it,” said Dr. Croon. “It’s feeding now. A good time to pull him out.”

“Get it outta me!” Tad yelled. “This thing’s a f….. parasite!”

“We will,” said Dr. Croon. “Hang on, Tad!”

The forceps moved in, and through the reverse specs, Tad saw the steel pushing; he screamed as the force points jerked and pierced the devil in his brain. He screamed again and the devil screamed too as liquid and chunks of rancid meat poured out of Tad’s ears. He felt the gushing and pouring, an overwhelming sulphur stench, and an immense immediate pain free relief, like the lancing of a boil. He yanked off the glasses. “What in the name of God?” he yelled.

In front of him, a demon formed from the liquid rushing from Tad’s ears. It twisted and molded itself into human shape right there in Croon’s office, and it looked exactly like Tad.

“There’s your devil,” said Dr. Croon, as the coal-eyed stinking demon snarled and leaped towards Tad’s throat. “And it’s coming for you.”

Tad writhed as the demon pushed into him completely, forcing all its matter back inside Tad’s body. Tad convulsed for the last time and his features shimmered back to normal, as if nothing had ever been cast out.

Dr. Croon pulled out his smart phone and called Sally the janitor.

“Hey, Sally,” he announced. “This Tad guy seems to have had a stroke or something like that in my office.” He looked at the paper bag full of money on his desk and said “I’m giving you a discount. You don’t have to pay for the removal of the body, the police will do that for free. I’m calling them now.”

Dr. Croon knew it was a bit of a risk, having the police involved, but Tad looked peaceful there lying with one hand over his heart; the Coroner’s report would diagnose a burst aneurism. Croon picked the jewel encrusted spectacles off the floor, carefully examined the lenses under the office’s fluorescent lights, and secured them back in the gold box.

∼ Harrison Kim

Redress of Grievances

December 31, 2025October 25, 2025 ~ Marge Simon ~ 3 Comments

“William James, come out tonight, for we have things to say; come out, come out, and be about, moonlight will show you the way …”

Insistent voices penetrate your dreams. Late these winter nights, you lie awake. They’ve been haunting you since you moved here, your family’s old estate in rural Salem. At last, you can stand it no longer. Donning warm coat and scarf and a pair of stout boots, you’re out the door. But first, you grab your father’s Glock, in case you find some homeless tramp out there. He wouldn’t be the first you “accidentally” killed for trespassing. Shooting a loser just might rid you of the voices in your head. You almost warm to the idea, but the chill wind rasps your skin and settles in your bones.

Your land at North Shore was once a part of Salem. Your family owned a substantial deal of it. Regular churchgoers, so righteous in their condemnation of those at Trials. Falsely accused as witches, the doomed were often burned alive. But that was long ago, and certainly no part of your affair. Catching a whiff of smoke, your eyes turn to the horizon. A light in the distance, could it be witches’ torches, or pagan’s rites? Your fingers curl around the gun in your pocket. As you near, the shadows take on human forms, their spectral faces pale and still. The Glock forgotten, you’re pinned by a mother’s glare, a father’s snarl, vengeful eyes around the fire. With a gasp, you realize you can see through them.

“William James, even as your ancestors, you’ve carried on most sinful acts with no remorse; driven your tenants to sell out, and granting them no respite. You’ve raped and beaten their women, even children alike. For shame! We’ve come to see you get your due.”

Like a driveling fool, you beg salvation. Deaf to your pleas, the spectral gathering closes in. You must give over, you’re the last of your vile kin. These ones have waited centuries to square things up. Tonight, your flesh will feed the flames.

∼ Marge Simon

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

The Unshriven

November 12, 2025October 22, 2025 ~ Charles Gramlich ~ 6 Comments

They come through the tunnels of Hell into the sunlight, wearing rusted armor astride horses of gore. Ancient swords hang at rotted hips and over decaying shoulders. Some carry morning stars, or battle axes upon which the blood of old wars has dried so hard it has bonded to the steel.

In dark madness they come, up fiery slopes of magma toward the snow-capped mountains of heaven. But the holy gates are shut against them and only earth is left to abide their time.

Unshriven. Unforgiven. No Heaven or Hell will have them.

Fortunately, they find that humans are both filling and taste great.

∼ Charles Gramlich

The Stray

November 5, 2025October 12, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 3 Comments

The scent of rot permeated the air; I knew I was close. I could almost taste the stench. I took each step with care—silence was essential. My eyes searched the darkness between the trees, looked for any sign of its bodily form. I tried to keep my imaginings to nil, as I didn’t want to spoil my initial reaction when my eyes finally witnessed its flesh. I wanted to see the dream for what it was, not for what it could be.

Movement in the brush ahead halted my breath. I listened to the silence that followed with fierce intent. The musky air thickened. But I heard no steps approach.

My heart pounded with a concoction of fear and excitement. I’d been hunting this legend since I was a boy. Those tales told around a fire, or with a few drinks—they stuck with me. They unraveled my focus on all other things. This was what I lived for. To find out what it really was.

Local lore said it might have once been human, an orphan raised by the wilderness. Others said it might be nature herself, risen from the earth to take vengeance upon anyone it could. No matter its origin, the stories said it traveled on all fours, and its nature was vicious and feral. If you think it’s close, it’s already too late. That’s how the stories always ended.

A release of breath shattered the silent night. It was hot against the back of my neck. I slowly turned to see what I yearned so badly for. My eyes went wide and took in all the moonlight had to offer. She towered above me, bare-breasted and malformed beyond description—an amalgam of evolutionary paths borrowed from a dozen species. But aside from her eyes and nose, her face was close to human.

She stared down at me as she reared up on her hind legs and let out an animalistic vocalization of aggression. I put my palms up and backed away a step to show I wasn’t a threat. She returned to four legs on the ground, her face now level with mine.

She approached, seemingly curious, and sniffed about my shirt collar. Her smell was so awful I could barely breathe. But I was content in that moment. I finally found what I was looking for. A smile spread across my lips as she ran her tongue along my neck.

Then the pain of her teeth sunk in. I heard the rending of my flesh in her mouth as it was torn from my neck. Agony, shock, disbelief, all surged through me in crashing waves. Her front leg pinned me to the ground. My ribs audibly broke beneath the weight.

Gasping for breath and drowning in my own blood, I struggled to gaze upon her one last time before she feasted on my body.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

The 6,666th Circle Rotation

October 29, 2025August 30, 2025 ~ TheDamned ~ 3 Comments

They still scream. Even after centuries, they never stop. The flesh rots, grows back, rots again. Their throats tear anew. It’s almost musical now, like a choir stripped of harmony. All bound to one shrill note of agony.

I should be tired of it. But, honestly? The pain stains me awake.

Today I was assigned three new arrivals. All of them preachers in life, they swore their souls were flameproof. I enjoyed peeling that arrogance like parchment off of wet bone. Their tongues, once full of sermon, hung in silence from my molten iron. I keep them in the ash pits where the smoke claws the lungs until coughing turns to bleeding.

One tried to beg for mercy. I reminded him of every unanswered prayer, every molested child that never saw justice. I showed him those memories while I shoved his face into the coals and watched his face melt, again and again. Mercy tastes like ash here.

What unnerves me, what I do not record lightly, is the sound I hear when my duties are done. When the halls are quiet and only the cinders whisper, I hear…laughter. Not the shrieks of the damned, but something deeper, older. A sinister chuckle that vibrates through the stone.

We are supposed to be the tormentors, not the tormented. Yet when the laughter rises, even I feel the itch under my skin, like claws testing the limits of my sanity. Perhaps it is Hell itself, amused at us all, kings, demons and sinners alike. I end the entry here…the laughter grows closer.

∼ Kathleen McCluskey

No Madonna

October 15, 2025August 27, 2025 ~ Marge Simon ~ 4 Comments

At sunset she serves herself with a candle on an oaken tray, a glass of wine, a plate of fruit. As she eats, she flips through an album. It contains her trials, loves and tribulations in photographs. There is the damask tablecloth from Surrey, embroidered towels, silver spoons; that certain green silk dress, a size too small she wore for King Henry ll’s ball … Melmac dishes from the sixties, the kind a gypsy could afford, they never broke when thrown … the dark-haired boy with smoky eyes, (she made him happy for a time, until her needs got in the way) … a shredded ticket to Belize with Sven, who never understood a word but never did that matter, at the time. One last sleigh ride in snowy Switzerland. Green yarn from a knitted hat. That sad faced man with the cowboy hat, and the older gentleman, the one she wed, both cattlemen and rich, back in the day. A columbine, pressed in wax paper. The lady smiles, having rekindled memories of her many passions. She blots her lips, wipes her fangs with a clean blue napkin.

∼ Marge Simon

Natural Inhumation

September 24, 2025September 20, 2025 ~ Lee Andrew Forman ~ 4 Comments

The rolling landscape extended beyond sight in all directions. The emptiness engulfed me in insignificance. This dead world I found myself on was as lonely as I. The howl of the constant wind was my only companion, and this planet was accompanied by a dying star that would one day stop sharing its warmth.

Tumultuous rumbles shook the ground. My compass pinned it south, so I headed north, away from whatever force caused the terrifying shakes. My footprints were swiftly erased by the constant gusts of sandy air. I mentally weighed how I might find my way back to the ship if I went too far, but disregarded those thoughts when I remembered there would be no reason to go back. It was irreparably damaged. I was stranded with no hope of rescue.

I knew this place was where my journey ended. Somewhere on this barren world my corpse would lay with no one to bury it. The distress call would eventually reach home, but by the time it did, it wouldn’t matter—the flesh will have rotted from my bones.

I almost wished for a crack in my visor, a tear in my suit, then at least the scythe would greet me with haste. But I had plenty of oxygen, I’d waste away before I suffocated.

I looked behind me every time the ground quaked. Despite my walking in the opposite direction, the vibration grew stronger. I could feel a violent power in the distance, something I didn’t want to be near. I supposed it didn’t matter, I’d meet my end here one way or another. But fear is the great motivator, it pushes one to survive even when there is no hope to be had. So I walked on.

Soon, daylight receded and the vast abyss of unreachable stars yawned above. I’d never felt so desolate and alone, never so meaningless and fleeting. Madness crept into my skull and began wrapping its fingers around my fading mind. Logic and training would soon fail me, I’d watch them fall with relief. They served me no more, not in this cursed place.

The next quake hit with ferocious tremors, its origin no longer beyond sight. The ground opened in front of me, sand poured in as the hole grew larger. Terror struck and slunk behind by back like the coward I was, fear wouldn’t even allow me to run.

As the sand began to move beneath my feet, I welcomed the swifter ending it would bring. This world would consume me. At least my miserable corpse would be buried after all.

∼ Lee Andrew Forman

A Lovely Day

September 10, 2025August 30, 2025 ~ Richard Meldrum ~ 7 Comments

We gazed out from the promenade towards the sea. The tide was in and the sun glittered off the small waves heading towards shore. Despite the weather, the town was nearly empty. We’d snagged an ice cream from a harassed vendor who was on the verge of closing up. We wandered down to the sea front clutching our cones.

“Your ice cream is melting,” I said.

Lucy licked her fingers. Behind us a car roared away, its tires squealing. Maybe it was the ice cream vendor, there weren’t many folk left.

“What a waste of time.”

We watched the sea. I checked my watch. It was nearly time. I took Lucy’s hand.

“It’s been a lovely day.”

“It has.”

Above, the sky was ripped open and a fiery streak blazed overhead. It was predicted the asteroid would land somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. And then, that would be that.

“Yes, what a lovely day.”

∼ RJ Meldrum

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