Fiction

    It is a warm summer morning, the sun is bashfully peeking over the mountains, filling the mansion with a wonderful warm glow.  The halls are empty, and eddies of dust swirl around.  My golden frame glimmers in the morning sun, and I stretch my arms out as far as they can go.  I flutter my eyes daintily.  Another glorious day.

A loud jingling sound emanates from downstairs, then a loud creak.  Astonished, I peek out of my painting and glance down the stairs.  An elderly woman has entered the building.  Her face has melted with age, covered in liver spots.  Next to her is a middle-aged woman.  When they look my way, I quickly meld back into my painting, assuming the position I was born in.  The two women begin to search around the house, my house, rummaging through drawers and file cabinets.  I feel my blood pressure increasing with everything they move out of place.

Something seems off about the older woman.  Her eyes seem like cruel copies of my own eyes.  Her hair is a faded version of my own golden hair.  On her finger is the same ring that I wear!  I am outraged as I recognize this hag.  I hear the younger woman climb up the staircase, the younger woman fixated with an old piano.  She sits on the old stool and opens the lid.  When I am sure that she isn’t watching, I slither out of my frame.  When I touch the sleek wooden floor, my delicate foot makes no sound.  The woman begins to play, and I recognize this melody.  It was something she would play when she was younger; however, her skills are greatly diminished.  My eyes narrow as I approach her, standing silently behind her.  What a cruel imitation of my eternal beauty.  Suddenly, her head whips around, shouting in fear as she sees me.  I zoom back into my painting, quickly resuming my pose.

The younger woman rushes down the stairs, wrapping her arm around the elderly woman, who is as pale as a ghost.

“Are you alright!?” the woman asks, panicked.

“Y…yes… I thought I saw someone behind me…”  The elderly woman mutters, her eyes not moving from my painting.  “But it was nothing…”

“I think we should go,” the young woman says quietly.

The pair leave quickly, closing the door behind them.  Once more, I am alone.

 

William MacLeod, 15, has been writing poetry, short stories, and novels before kindergarten. This is his second published work, his first being a poem put in the newspaper of his small hometown in California.  When he’s not writing, he enjoys other creative hobbies like drawing and painting, or spending time with his cat: Gwyneth.

A tumbleweed blew by.

It was as dead as the rest of the small frontier town: dry, shriveled, a husk that was once a lively plant. The earth was cracked and dry, the sky a pale and unforgiving yellow. The hands of the clock tower pointed to high noon, and despite having ceased movement years ago, they still happened to be correct, just for this one passing minute.

Two figures stood on opposite ends of the main street, eyes shaded by wide hats with hands hovering over their belts. Off to the side, a pair of horses watched, bridles tied to the rotting post of the abandoned saloon. They had seen this showdown hundreds of times before, and would no doubt see it hundreds of times more.

Both outlaws sharply eyed a bird pecking at the ground. The scrawny thing wasn’t going to find any food in such a desolate land, but every day at noon, it returned nonetheless. Didn’t the simple thing know it was just wasting its time, tapping at the soil in a daily exercise in futility? The first outlaw squinted a little, teeth biting down on the straw in her mouth. The second curled his chapped lips. Having finally resigned its fruitless quest for seed, the bird between them spread its wings and fluttered off to wherever it came.

As soon as the bird’s tiny feet left the ground, two gunshots broke the silence of the dead town.

The wide hat of the first outlaw was blown off her head, her scalp only narrowly grazed by the bullet. The second outlaw’s hat, however, was the least of his worries. He staggered backwards, his head had been blown clean through. The chunks of skull and viscera never hit the ground, but evaporated into a thick black smog that hung in the air like a ghost. The first outlaw didn’t seem satisfied, sliding her revolver back into its holster on her waist as she sprinted to her horse, and pulled a long shotgun from beneath its saddle.

Running to the still standing man, she unceremoniously blew his head clean off, the blast knocking him to the ground. The wounds were exuding more thick, foul-smelling smoke, as though hell itself were reaching through his body and clawing its way into the real world. She blew a second hole through his chest, opening the coach gun’s breach and replacing two empty shells with a pair stuffed with silvered buckshot.

“In the name ov’ the Lord,” She loudly declared, firing her weapon indiscriminately into the body that still flinched and smoked with every shot, “deliver ‘is unholy spirit n’ta Hell, cast this devil n’ta the deepest pits a’ fire ‘n brimstone, t’whence it may never return!” 

She chanted for several minutes, invoking curses belonging to every religion and tongue, interspersing them with a double-aught chaser whenever she thought she saw the body move through the dark haze it produced. Once satisfied with these curses and banishments, she returned to her horse once more, retrieving a large jar of holy water and dumping much of it over the smoking husk. Then, she salted the body. Then, garlic. Then, drove a crudely silvered knife into where she imagined his heart would probably be. She used the buttstock of her shotgun to hammer in a few wooden stakes, just in case she guessed wrong. After lighting her lantern, she tossed it on the barely-recognizable mash of smoking remains, engulfing them in oily flame.

She watched the body for a long few minutes, hardly bothered by the suffocating plume that the wind blew into her face. The pillar of smoke hung high in the sky, thick black as tar and infesting the area with the rancid smell of death. Once she was satisfied, she returned to retrieve her hat, before retiring inside the abandoned saloon. Small book in hand, she began taking notes as to the exact procedure she’d undergone this time–her exact words, her exact actions, every last detail.

It wasn’t until the sun hung low that the woman heard the saloon doors creak open behind her.

“Sonnuv a bi–” Her curse began, cut short as a revolver’s bullet pierced the side of her head. Her entire body slumped to one side, hand reaching out to grab the bar top to prevent falling from her stool. A disgusting black smog poured from the wound in her head.

A man stepped behind the bar, sliding his revolver into its holster with a dejected frown on his face. His shirt was full of holes, beard singed and body a dark ashen color as though he’d lain in a campfire. There were uncountable faint scars on his chest and face, although the longer one stared, the harder they became to perceive.

He reached up on the alcohol shelf, fingering through dusty empty bottles before finally discovering one which still contained some diluted liquid. Pulling a pair of small glasses from beneath the splintered wooden bar, the dry man filled both as equally as possible, sliding one towards the hand of the woman still in the process of righting herself. In exchange, he flipped her notebook around, squinting at the poor handwriting.

“Garlic’s a no-go.” The woman commented, running her hands through her dry hair. The deathly fume pouring from her temple had faded, what was once a lethal wound replaced by nothing but a scar.

“Donno why you even tried, we ain’t vampires.” He commented, raising his dusty glass to his lips.

“I don’ know, I jus’ thought… I don’ know. We’re runnin’ out’v shit ta’ try.”

“You might be, I’ve got plenty more ideas.”

The woman scoffed, taking the second glass. The whiskey was ancient and spoiled, it barely tasted like anything, but it was ritual at this point. “Y’said that yest’rday. Y’hit my hat.”

“Still shot first. You’re getting slow.”

“Got’ya today, didn’t I?”

The man gave a brief chuckle and a small nod of acknowledgement, swirling the faded liquid around his small glass. Neither of them got much out of the near-empty bottle, but it wasn’t the whiskey they sat in this empty saloon for.

“I’m gonna’b awful lonely once I send’ya t’Hell, huh?” The woman mused, after a long minute of silence between them.

“Don’t count on it. Tomorrow’s the day I put you down for good.” 

It was the woman’s turn to scoff. They’d spent countless years locked in this halfhearted contest, she hardly let herself hope for such sweet release. Maybe one day one of them would discover the miracle necessary to break their unholy curse. Both were beaten, whipped, they’d outlived everything that mattered to them. They shared a hollowness, a dryness, a certain solidarity two outlaws cursed with immortality could only experience. His lips were chapped and split. Her hands were dry and rough. Their nails were chipped and eyes dull. They were tired, but they were each others’ only lifelines.

So, the two drank and spoke for a time longer. Once the moon was high, they mounted their horses and went their separate ways. The fire from the lantern oil was still smoldering on the dusty main street when the weary pair rode past. The moon set, the sun rose, and come midmorning, a pair of figures rode into the otherwise derelict settlement. They exchanged a few brief words, before taking their places.

A tumbleweed blew by.

 

 

Mag Callaghan is a student attempting to study English and Education in cruel and unforgiving rural Ohio. Their interests involve visual arts and flash fiction writing, as well as tabletop role-playing games, acquiring keychains, and describing themself in the third person.

 

I lit a cigarette on my way to the grocery store. There was something in the wind that made its light sputter, so I offered it mine, to breathe life in the transaction. I store every cigarette stub I ever birthed in a box. I feel bad simply throwing into the trash or onto the sidewalk what had once been alive. There are a handful of stubs at the bottom of my purse that have not yet been embalmed for their funeral rites. I simply haven’t gotten around to it.

I used to save the Boy’s stubs too. This would make him laugh as I stole them from his grasp, or caught them in my palms as they dropped, softly if I was catching a baby. He dropped one on the sidewalk once and I got on my hands and knees to save her from mutilation. He laughed.

The Boy laughed like the wind. Which means everything. I think that is why I loved him even as he swept me away.

I used to keep the graveyard under my bed, until He complained of the smell. It was like living at the bottom of the bonfire. So, I exhumed the corpses to my kitchen cabinet. It is unfortunate one will open a door expecting to find a plate only to be met with death. The Boy threw them out once as if it was a favor. After he left the next morning I pulled out the trash and got on my hands and knees to find every last body.

He dropped them on the sidewalk often. Mostly in the night where no matter how hard I tried I could not save their souls. I would cry in the bathroom at a funeral without a body. Then I would kiss him till I came back alive with tears to spare another day.

When the baby dropped between my legs, the doctor blamed the smoking. I laughed at him like the wind then brought what was left of living to flame. The smoke tasted cool against my skin.

I could never save a stub The Boy did not give me willingly. Which means everything. I think that’s why I loved him because some days he would come home with a palm of cigarette stubs, and caress my hair as I performed the funeral rites under his watch.

My graveyard is public property. For my corpses and his are all treated the same. Cleaned softly with a tissue paper and then returned to a cigarette case, as if they were never born at all. In that way, there are always ghosts, though I never know if I or he created them.

When the Boy was looking for a plate and found a shoebox filled with ashes in my graveyard, right next to a stack of cigarette boxes that could never be used and were in use, he lit a cigarette and left the house. I found the stub by the front door when I came home. I was careful not the step on it as I opened the front door, just slight enough to not let the cold in. I imagine by now, the wind must have carried the corpse away, that body, I did not kill but still did not venture to care for.

 

 

 

Norah Rami (she/her) is a pun connoisseur, professional cloud watcher, and writer from Houston. A member of Houston’s Youth Slam Poetry Team, Norah’s work has been published by Prospectus and Brown Girl Magazine as well as shared at local venues. She is a current senior at Clements High School.

The window saw. It saw people come and go. It saw happiness, anger, pain. If you were to look through the window, you could see just about anything.

The window was a gateway. It saw worlds crushed, and worlds built back up. Life, death and destruction. Sometimes it showed things that it was supposed to, like the weed-strewn sidewalk in front of it.

Other times, it showed empty space, sprinkled with stars. A flooded world. A futuristic pet shop. An elephant, silently trumpeting as its herd migrated. A necromancer, bent on power, sending his skeletal armies to conquer anything they could find.

But today, for the first time since its creation, the window showed nothing. An expanse of white, devoid of anything. Passersby wondered at its inherent emptiness. Some fretted, worrying about what the blankness could mean. Children came by to watch the goings on within the window, but quickly became bored.

None owned the window, for it stood free of any barriers or walls. None knew where the window came from, or how it was built. They knew only that one day, it appeared in front of a vacant lot, bolted to a three-legged wooden table. That was all.

Presently, within the white, a dot appeared. It grew closer, becoming less blurry and more pronounced with each step, until it was discernible as a humanoid. It appeared to be calling something undecipherable. Sound does not travel through the window.

The humanoid’s movements became more frantic, panicked, as it searched for something unseeable.

A frequent visitor of the window, bored and requiring entertainment, brought a lawn chair and sat facing the window, watching the humanoid scrabble around. The frequenter was joined by two others, all dissatisfied by their current state of boredom. One coughed.

The humanoid’s head jerked up, and it glanced around. One of the other frequenters laughed. “It heard you.” The person said, jokingly.

The humanoid stood up straight, bones snapping audibly, despite the constant silence of the window and the distance of the humanoid.

One of the frequenters looked at the window oddly. “It’s never made noise before.”

“Yeah, that’s weird.”

The humanoid walked closer to the window, and its features became distinct. It appeared to be a male human, with a sweeping cloak around his shoulders. His eyes were without white, an empty endless black.

He got closer, and closer, still very slowly. The frequenter who had coughed shuffled nervously. “I don’t like this. I’m headed home.”

The frequenter left.

The man in the window did not. He kept walking until his face was directly in front of the glass.

He pulled open the window, a feat no other being had ever accomplished, and stuck his head out. The remaining frequenters screamed.

The man looked directly at them and said seven words in an emotionless voice. “I will be taking my window back.”

He grabbed the sides of the window and pulled it inward. The window popped inside of itself and disappeared. One of the frequenters fainted.

 

 

 

Jack Arnold spends most of his time keeping his three younger brothers wrangled, but when he has time, he writes (or reads, whichever he prefers). Usually about characters he’s created with his brothers, who are an excellent source of inspiration.

The scent that permeates the air in my home has a hard edge to it; on it, a name teeters dangerously. It swings back and forth, threading between two truths, and threatens to tip over into an endless abyss. This is where tears go when we swallow them behind our lids, and where my mom goes when I refuse to say I love you. Match in hand, cylinder mistress in the other, she seals her fate in the shapes of gray clouds; a pill, a Bible, a man. This is what love is, and she exhales. The smoke obscures her face and sinks into the walls. At night, when I sleep, the scent slips into my pores, nestles beneath my skin, and follows me outside.

The day after is a battle against my body. My words are delivered with the smell of tobacco. When I touch, discolored fingertips pinch skin like a freshly lit cigarette butt. Crooked, my stance is a matchstick burnt too long, and where I walk, a trail of ashes follows. Just as I cannot hide my disjointed origins, I struggle to rid myself of this acrid aroma.

In the stillness of the school bathroom, where the air is crisp and sterile, I rush to clean myself. Tucking toilet paper beneath my leaking arms, I count: One. Perfume, deodorant, and antiperspirant to get rid of that disgusting odor. Two. I drown my tongue in white mints until it bleeds crimson. Three. Scented wipes are tucked into the extra space in my shoes, numbing my toes. Four. I pull my hair back into something gentle, unassuming. Five. It smells awful.

When I’m finished, I can barely breathe, barely feel, barely smile; I am hardly alive. Still, it is better than the alternative — knees out and neck exposed like a big, red sign pointing to a stinky girl who smells like midnight arguments and disappearing dads; who smells like her life is defined by the gap between her parents’ hands and half a presence. Staring in the mirror, I practice my laughter. If I cannot hide the scent, I can at least conceal the stain of an imperfect family.

In my reflection, there is a dark divide between my lips. It’s a thin line — an edge — that’s broken open only by the name of the past; I let it grow ever older, sharper until its corners bite my tongue. If I forget the way my dad held me, I won’t need to remember the days he’s left me. On this dangerous boundary, the name sways through two realities. My mom has fallen into one, and I am tipping into the other, where plastic hips and empty promises frolic in fields of syringes.

The bell rings and the name falls. The moment comes to put my methods to the test. When I step into the hallway, the crowd scrunches their noses.

 

Florianne Che is a high school Junior located in the Chicago area. Each day she is moved by the articulate and impactful words of the novels she reads, and through constant trial and error, she hopes to one day write in a way that moves her audience to the same extent. For now, she settles for half-baked thoughts in the margins of her notebooks and whispered rhymes when no one is listening.

Cicadas don’t scream like they used to.

Evan clings to this thought as he walks, numb with rot, down to the bone. He’s nothing but the
texture of the rope slipping against clumsy fingers, the burning against his palm. The cicadas
are quiet, even as the sun swells in the sky, a concentrated fist of wobbling heat. Evan hears
himself breathing. Hears Ruby breathing, short, quick, desperate breaths, like she’s drowning,
even as she continues to walk. She stumbles. Evan doesn’t catch her – his arms are full, after
all.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

Something soft rubs against Evan’s calves, and for a moment he pretends that it’s nothing but
lamplight-eyes Mew slinking around his legs, or the tendrils of his newest fern tipped sideways,
spilling soil. The cicadas are so very quiet. Why are they so quiet?

When Evan reaches the tree, it rings like a victory, and that thought curdles in his gut like sour
milk. His chest heaves for air. His teeth clatter against each other like marimbas. Ruby’s
stomach growls, and the sound feels almost sacrilegious. There’s something patently wrong
about the human nature of the bodies they inhabit – Evan’s never felt less like a real boy. It’s
easier if they’re two mindlessly shuffling dolls with painted lips and glass eyes. It’s so much easier.

There is an open bottle of wine on the kitchen table.

There is an open bottle of wine on the kitchen table, and it is cherry red and steaming violet,
crushed grapes fermenting, carmine and rose, and Evan clings to it like a lifeline. He closes his
eyes and imagines it in the scrunched-up, bled-dry corner of his mind. The individual dust
motes, suspended in the air, like snippets of dry skin cut out of a ghost. Filtered spindles of light.
The heady, heavy scent of berries. Evan turns it over and over in his brain, a rotating wheel, and
the sour smell of it, creeping under his nails and nostrils, is almost real. Almost.

In his addled state, his head spirited away, Evan trips.

He hits the grass softly, like a whisper, mud nuzzling up against the incline of his cheek. Rosie
does not.

Ruby shrieks as Rosie falls, an entirely involuntary sound, and Evan winces at the way it leaves
his ears echoing with thinly-spread pain. Her body thuds awkwardly against the earth, and
something cracks – ribs, maybe, or the already-fragile line of her collar. Evan scrambles to his
feet, leaves and undergrowth flaking under him as he moves. There’s no mistaking the motion of
the action, of the way Ruby stops herself from sobbing, cuts herself off in the deep part of her
throat, desperate and ragged, down to the root. Smooth, black hair spreads out across the
undergrowth like spilled ink, a dark patch, and Evan is not thinking about the open bottle of wine
at his house or the dark, plum-colored half-moons beneath his eyes, like someone had taken a
scraper to his bare cheeks. There is only the body. There is only ever the body.

Somehow, Evan stands up.

They will bury this body even if it kills them.

 

 

 

Lyra Kois is a junior at Yorktown High School, in Arlington, Virginia. She enjoys writing, music, and art, and is deeply passionate about social issues. She mainly works with Signature Theater, especially SigWorks in the schools. She hopes to one day own a dog.