Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy Page 0,33

the black as he was pulled out of the window and I screamed after him.

Tyler grabbed me and tossed me to the floor. He started babbling words in a language I didn’t understand. I struggled, trying to force myself up.

“No, my Father I have not failed you. She is the chosen,” Tyler pleaded to someone unseen. All I heard was more snarling and wind. He dropped his head as if he were about to be struck.

“Please take her, the time is nigh and she is ready. I am yours and am ready as well. Please bring me home,” he begged and dropped to one knee. The snarling grew louder and blood started running from his ears as he screamed. I watched in horror as he crumbled to a pile on the floor clutching at his head.

Blood poured from his ears and his nose, forming a snake on the ground. The bloody monstrosity slithered towards me and I screamed, unable to move. I could hear the creaking of boards and the rushing of water as the storm came inland even more, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sight of this blood snake that was attempting its way to me. The head of the beast formed, black eyes opened and stared straight at me.

I heard the explosion a moment before the sensation of flying registered and everything went dark.

* * * * *

“Just about done,” the tattooist said. He was quite the talker while he did his art. His name was Earl and he had a wife who was a seamstress and four children.

“Just terrible to hear about all the devastation in town though, the ritzier buildings all got ate up pretty bad, lots of people gots to spend their money to rebuild now.” He rambled on and I let him talk. His accent wasn’t native to Louisiana in the slightest, but I couldn’t quite place it either. He had a big heart, and I figured it was why he hid behind the long, black hair and tattoos.

“I heard about the Wilburn Facility. Gas main blew just as the storm hit. They’d evacuated it the day before though. Only time they’d ever did that though, lucky they done it though I guess. It’s just odd though that nothing else on that whole street got damaged by that, no fires, nothing. And only one half of that there building blew out, left their inner garden untouched. Just real odd.”

I grinned at his words as he wiped off my back and handed me a mirror again. My back had a large blue bird rising up out of flames and ashes with a red-eyed black dog in its talons on it now. A phoenix was fitting I thought, considering.

“Can you add just one more thing?” I asked. “Right under the flames in script: ‘Two of four, three of three, five of one’.”

He looked at me oddly for a moment but complied, handing me the mirror once more. I nodded my approval and paid him generously for his time and work.

Stepping outside the shop, I realized the street was much like those I was most familiar with. I glanced back at the shop window to see my reflection. My eyes flashed red as I pulled my sunglasses down over them and grinned.

My phone started buzzing in my purse and I picked it up, looking at the display before opening it.

“Good afternoon Levi,” I said sweetly as I left the shop front ready to start the next chapter of my new life.

Periphery People

Sara Reinke

©2011

All rights reserved.

“Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there,” the man at the bar said to me, nursing a fresh two-fingers worth of Ketel vodka in a tumbler he cradled between his thick, calloused fingers.

“‘He wasn’t there again today. Oh how I wish he’d go away,’” I answered, drawing his sleepy but surprised gaze from the basin of his drink. “Antogonish by William Hughes Mearns. That’s what you were quoting right?”

He studied me for a moment as if seeing me for the first time and trying to size me up. Most of the terminal drunks who typically dragged their sorry carcasses into the tavern this time of the night amused themselves by ogling my tits or hitting me with slurred promises of unimaginable sexual pleasure. Not this guy—John was his name. His first name anyway, or at least that’s what he’d told me. I didn’t know his last one, didn’t really care.

When he said nothing, I rolled