Fiction

The 411 on 911.

I kissed you, cutting my lip on your teeth. You moaned at the taste of me. You tried to hold yourself back, but the pull of blood was just too strong.

The bodies all wore white—a puzzling detail. And the whiteness of their clothes belies traces of blood and smudges of dirt. Around their necks were signs made from cardboard, the letters on them spelling out, in careful print, one word: Bato. “Stone,” Ramon muttered, reading the puzzling detail and looking out through the slats of their barricaded windows that first night. “What the fuck does that mean? Stone?”

She scrolled through Anton’s Instagram feed, double-tapping a couple of pictures. His last post was six hours ago—sunset across a horizon of trees. She wondered where he was when he took the photo, and why he wanted to meet her tonight. Alone.

When she had worn the girl down and finally trapped her against a tree, the old woman took both children inside the squat cabin next to the smoke house where she chained the girl to a post near the stove and kept the boy in a cage under the table.

Some use demons to take revenge on their enemies. Others use them to acquire wealth and power in the mortal realm, while others use them for more mundane tasks, such as gardening. Whatever your reasons, we salute you and wish you well.

Someone had opened the front door and his silhouette stood stark against the yellow light of the garage.

He glanced towards the old woman’s table, and saw silhouettes occupying all four chairs around it. A trick of the dark, he thought.