Penelope Aftergut slipped on her red stilettos and wrapped her long thick blonde hair in a tight bun securing it with a ice pick. The black slacks and red sweater ensemble she donned almost made her look like every other mother. She would remove her clothes during the activity. She examined herself in the full length mirror and applied her signature blood red lipstick to her perfect, pouty lips.


“Sara, I have to go,” Penelope said walking into the living room and leaning down pushing her ten-year old daughter’s hair behind her ears. “Grandma will be here in ten minutes. Think you can manage Brian for that long?”


Penelope kissed the top of Sara’s head, grabbed her Louis Vuitton and opened the front door. With one last look at her daughter she said, “Call me if you need me, or if Grandma doesn’t show.”
“Sure mom,” Sara huffed, crossing her arms. “Have fun at the PTA meeting with that stupid Mr. Hodensack. Johnny said he’s a cult leader and likes to eat children!”


“I know honey.”


Penelope arrived at the meeting and sat in a chair on the aisle in the back row wanting to make sure that Mr. PTA President saw her. Glancing around she saw each of her special friends. She had her reasons for wanting to kill Jeffrey Hodensack and her friends were along for the ride.


The cafeteria was half-full when he took the podium. Pledge allegiance by the boy scouts and that’s when he noticed Penelope. Bile rose in Penelope’s throat as his eyes pierced her soul. A cult leader he was, and he was good at it. Charismatic. Charming. Influential. And a passionate speaker.


She could smell the vile, evil creature within him. A door slammed and everyone’s focus was shed on the side door and Penelope’s heart thudded as…
Rex Miles stood in the doorway looking as out of place as a, well, as an assassin at a PTA meeting. He wore all black and had a crazed look upon his face.


Just like I remember him, Penelope thought. She intimidated most men. But not Rex. He did things to her no other man had on their one night together. He stood her up on what was to be their second escapade. God help her, she wanted him now. Heat swarmed within her. Her eyes narrowed in anger and glimmered with passion. Penelope got up and made a beeline towards him. She slammed him on his shoulder and hissed, “What the hell are you doing here?”


“Penelope Aftergut, you remembered that I like it rough,” Rex said smoothly. “How have you been?”


“Don’t fuck with me, Rex!” She looked him up and down and thought of those hands touching, rubbing, pinching, plunging and she shivered.
Rex’s lips curled into a crafty smile. “Oh, I’ve already done that.”


The meeting continued as Jeffrey Hodensack began to speak. The crowd now focused on him instead of the back of the room where Rex and Penelope stood.


“Bastard, you could have done it again too,” she replied. “Now tell me why you’re here.”


“You know me, Penelope. I’m an assassin,” Rex glanced at the podium.


“I’m here to kill Jeffery Hodensack.”


“The hell you are,” Penelope snapped back. “That’s why I’m here!”


“Well,” Rex began, “I was paid to kill Jeffery Hodensack, and his followers. So…” They looked around the room. “I guess there is enough killing that will satisfy both of our needs.”


“I have some friends here to help.” Penelope smiled brightly and brushed up against Rex whispering in his ear. “This is going to be fun.” She removed the ice pick from her bun and shook out her hair. “I hope to have fun with just you afterwards.” She showed Rex the ice pick and started to undress.


Rex grinned, “I think that can be arranged.”


Hodensack’s voice rose like a dictator addressing his army. With a nod from Penelope, her special friends barricaded the doors. Rex pulled two nine-millimeter Beretta’s from his shoulder hostlers. He looked over at Penelope and asked, “Do you want to kill Hodensack?”


“Yes,” she said with yearning desire.


Rex aimed at Jeffery Hodensack and pulled the trigger. Hodensack grabbed his chest as blood began to pour out of the wound. A large man wearing a gray suit lunged at Rex, but Penelope jammed the ice pick into his throat.


“Damn!” Rex quipped. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.” He raised the Beretta at a man who was running towards them screaming, “You asshole! You’ve shot Jeffery! You’re trying to kill him!” Rex shrugged a shoulder and pulled the trigger. The man’s head flew backwards as the back of his skull disappeared in an array of blood, bone and brain matter.


Penelope smiled and said, “Now, it’s time for me to play.”


Blood pooled around Jeffrey’s mid-section as Penelope stood above him. Even dying he looked like the filthy wolf he was. His eyes opened and closed and she watched in amusement. She was only vaguely aware of the screams and gunfire surrounding her. Jeffrey reached a hand out and grabbed Penelope’s ankle. She shook it away. “Don’t fuck with my children,” she said and laid a well placed stiletto imprint on his arm.

* * *

Penelope followed Rex to the same place of their first encounter. She watched as Rex got a room and walked over to her car. Penelope was still reeling from the thrill of the kill and from what would prove to be the best night of her life.


“Ms. Aftergut,” Rex said.


“Mr. Miles,” she said as she exited her car. He grabbed her by the back of her hair and yanked her head back so she looked up at him. “Foreplay starting already, Rex?” She smiled.


“Foreplay started an hour ago,” He kissed her hard while freeing the bloody ice pick from the tight bun. He released her and a grin spread on her face.

“We won’t need this,” Rex said, tossing the ice pick into her car. “I’ve got something else that I’d like to poke you with.”

"The Meeting"

Copyright: © 2009 Suzie Bradshaw & Chad Case

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Suzie Bradshaw loves speaking and writing about herself in the third person. She doubts that light is really the fastest thing in the Universe and in her next life she will prove Einstein wrong. But in this life all she wants to do is write. Is that a song? A list and links to her stories can be found at her blog at http://www.suziebradshaw.blogspot.com/. She's never been happier in her life and would like to thank you for reading.

Chad Case lives in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, with his wife, Melissa. He enjoys writing short horror fiction in his spare time. To date his works have been published on MicroHorror.com, The New Flesh Blogzine, Flashes In The Dark, and in the anthology: Toe Tags.

The anticipation was nearly unbearable. Dr. Raymond Shelton’s arms fought against the restraints against his will. His hands balled into angry fists and his fingernails dug into his palms.

He gritted his teeth and ignored the pain. Soon, he hoped, it would be all over and the threat would be at an end.

His mind-control experiment had been successful. The worms that he had created slithered up into his patients’ noses and then burrowed straight into their brains. But before he had the chance to take control of them, the worms had taken over.

Soon after, he was overpowered by several of the patients. They forced him onto a table and placed, what turned out to be the alpha worm, into his nose. It burrowed through soft tissue and his skull before finally finding its mark. Dr. Shelton’s associates stormed in and destroyed the patients and then strapped him into a chair. They had hoped to figure out how to destroy the worm without causing any harm to its respective host.

Dr. Shelton’s assistants worked around the clock experimenting on animals with different serums and chemicals. Inevitably all of the hosts were killed in the experiments.

Meanwhile, Dr. Shelton’s brain screamed. White hot pain coursed through his body. The worm wanted control, but Dr. Shelton fought it with all the strength he could muster. But he gradually became weaker and his concentration slowly began to fade.

Dr. Camilla Jefferson shined a light into Dr. Shelton’s exhausted eyes. She looked concerned. Dr. Shelton felt a mild flutter of panic in his ragged body. He watched her whisper to the other doctors. They glanced at him disconcertingly. It would be over soon, he realized. Death was the only way out.

The worm must have sensed it too. Dr. Shelton’s body began to convulse involuntarily. Again it strained against the arm and leg cuffs that held Dr. Shelton’s body in place.

Large lumps of contracted muscle rose on his forearms, just above his wrists. Long cords of veins swelled as his arms shook furiously against the restraints.

Dr. Shelton cried out as both arms cracked loudly. He watched as the bones in both forearms pierced his flesh. They continued to rise as his hands remained clamped down. He howled in pain as the flesh split off like a banana peel.

The jagged ends of his bones raked against his neck, crudely paring the skin. His entire body was alight with pain. It was as if every nerve had been severed.

The doctors watched in horror across the room. The lab’s patriarch was flaying himself right before their very eyes. The sheer spectacle of it all kept them from interfering.

Finally blue and red strands snaked out from the gaping gash around the doctor’s neck. They slid out further and then pushed against the body like a maintenance worker pulling himself from a manhole.

Dr. Shelton’s head separated from his body. His veins and arteries were acting like a confused network of rudimentary legs. They flailed about, trying to get their grip. Dr. Shelton’s head dangled from the body for a moment and then finally dropped to the cool tile floor.

Dr. Jefferson was the first to snap out of her horrified stupor. She snatched a scalpel from a surgical tray and charged at the head.

An artery whipped at her and then wrapped around her throat. It barely needed to flex before her windpipe crushed. Her face was a disgusting shade of blue when she crumpled to the floor.

The head lifted itself with new-found self control. The vein and artery legs carried it closer to the other two doctors - Dr. Banks and the young Dr. Hinson. Dr. Banks flung open a stainless steel cabinet door. He grabbed several glass jars.

He threw them, one at a time, at the head. Most had no effect. Then one, marked: Hydrochloric Acid, seemed to slow it. The jar shattered at the head’s “feet.”

It stumbled a bit before wrapping an artery around the doctor’s throat. It required more effort than before, but it was able to successfully crush his windpipe.

The last doctor, Dr. Hinson, backed himself into the corner of the lab. He whimpered like a sad puppy. He crawled up onto the counter.

The worm sensed that the tissue was dying in the head. The lack of oxygen in the blood and the effects of the hydrochloric acid had nearly done Dr. Shelton’s head in. The time had come to take over a new host.

The worm sent a web of veins to Dr. Hinson. It pulled the head closer to him. Finally the head was nose to nose with Dr. Hinson, who was merely a quivering mess of emotions.

That would soon end.

The worm climbed out of the decapitated head of Dr. Shelton, and soon after, it burrowed into Dr. Hinson’s brain.

The head fell to the floor. The worm was pleased with its new host. Dr. Hinson was far lesser of a fighter than Dr. Shelton was. He commanded his new host to retrieve the other worms. There is much work to be done.

"Worms"

Copyright: © 2009 Brian Barnett

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Brian Barnett lives with his wife, Stephanie, and son, Michael, in Frankfort, Kentucky.To date, he has published over forty-five stories since he began publishing in November 2008.

He has been published by MicroHorror.com, Flashes in the Dark, Static Movement, The New Flesh Blogzine, Midnight Screaming Magazine, The Monsters Next Door, Sonar4 Ezine, Blood Moon Rising, Flashshot, Black Lantern Blogzine, Dark Fire Fiction, Burst Fiction, The Daily Tourniquet, Yellow Mama, The Lesser Flamingo, and The Short Humour Site.

He was co-editor the anthology “Toe Tags: 21 Spine-Tingling Tales from the Best New Authors of Horror” with William Pauley III.

"Worms" originally appeared on Flashes In the Dark on 8.3.09

It began when Mrs. Morrison gave me the meal worms. Every student in third grade got three. I named mine Ramesses, Thutmose, and Cleopatra. I thought of pharaohs when she gave us a dish full of crumbled Grape Nuts. The Grape Nut bits were cold and smelled like sawdust. They reminded me of sand, so I shoveled them all into pyramid shapes.

Every morning, first thing, we would file to the back of the class and take our trays. Then, we’d all write down our observations. At first, my meal worms didn’t do much. They didn’t even seem to eat their moldy bran flakes. Mostly I just poked them with the tip of my pencil. At best, they would squirm on the fat of their tails, scraping the lead with their tiny claws.

Then one morning they began to change. Cleopatra was the first. When I opened the dish, I noticed her face had turned bright green. Her body was an even brighter glowing green, and every now and then some egg-shaped bubbles pushed against her skin. I asked my teacher, “Is she pregnant? Is her skin supposed to do that?”

She barely even looked. “You need to focus on your work,” she said.

“I am!” I said, “I think she’s turning into something else.”

“Write that down in your notebook,” said Mrs. Morrison.

Soon all my worms were bright and green and pulsing. They tunneled through the pyramids and left a trail of something sticky. I scooped up a bit of the slime with my finger once. I almost screamed because I could see through my skin to the muscle and veins underneath. I drew a picture of my finger in my notebook. When I showed it to Mrs. Morrison, she made a face.

“What’s that?” she said.

“It’s my finger.”

“How did that happen?” she asked.

“It happened when I touched the slime.”

The recess bell rang. She said, “Get in line and stop worrying.”

When I returned to my desk, the meal worms were dead. They were rolled into strips of kleenex so they looked like little mummies. I placed them in the pyramids. I sealed them in with the muddy brown uneaten bran flakes. Don’t worry, I wanted to tell them, I won’t forget. But beginning that day, I had nothing to write in my notebook. After that, I just felt really stupid about the whole thing.

"Pyramids"
Copyright: © 2009 Meghan Lamb
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Rex Miles pulled the trigger back on his Remington 870 shotgun, and fired eight rounds into a shabby green and white mobile home. He reloaded the rifle and fired eight more rounds into the trailer. He walked slowly to the door, throwing the Remington over his shoulder, and pulled out a nine-millimeter Beretta out of his black wool coat. He kicked in the small wooden door, and found his target.

A man crawling on his stomach towards the phone. Blood flowed out of two gapping wounds. One in the leg, and the another in his lower back. Rex stepped over him quickly and yanked the phone cord out of the wall. Rex looked down at the man and asked, “Joseph Banks?”

The dark-haired man stopped and rolled over. He gazed up at Rex who wore all black. Joseph wheezed, “Maybe?” Blood oozed from his lips.

Rex tilted his head to one side. “I know it’s you, Mr. Banks.” he said. “I’m a hired gun, and I do my homework on all of my victims.”

“Assassin?” Joseph gasped, eyes blinking wildly. “But who’d want to kill me?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Rex started. “I just collect my money. Pull a trigger. And don’t ask any questions. Because if you ask questions… then it gets personal.”

“Then why didn’t you just kill me quickly?” Joseph uttered, coughing. “Like in the movies.”

“I could have,” Rex said, raising an eyebrow. “But business has been slow, and I wanted to try out my new gun.” He turned the Beretta slowly, so that Joseph could examine it. “You should feel privileged, Mr. Banks. You’ll be the first one kill with it.” “Wait,” Joseph yelled, breathing uneasy. “Wait. I’ve got money.” A pause. “Ten-thousand dollars in cold hard cash.” Another pause, swallowing hard. “Is that enough to let me live?”

“No,” Rex began, shaking his head. This is why you kill them with one quick shot, he thought. So you don’t have to listen to them beg. “It’s called the assassin’s creed. A jobs a job. And begging won’t get you anywhere.” Rex knelt down, pulled the hammer back on the Beretta and put the steel barrel to Joseph’s sweating forehead.

“Wait! Wait!” Joseph yelped. “What about a job? If I tell you where the money is… then will you kill…” he swallowed and drew a deep breath. “Whoever paid you to kill me?”

Rex pondered the thought, This is a first, and business has been slow. “I suppose,” Rex said, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Where’s the money?”

Joseph pointed to the hallway and coughed, “Under my bed. In an old shoebox.”

“Okay,” Rex said and pulled the trigger. He walked to the bedroom, and found the shoebox. Opened it to find ten-thousand dollars in one-hundred dollar bills.

Rex left the wreckage of the mobile home. Climbed into his black Tahoe, and looked into the mirror. “I guess the former Mrs. Banks will be my next assignment.” Along the way home Rex Miles paid a visit to Mrs. Banks. “A jobs a job,” he told her moments before he killed her.

He returned home at three in the morning. Checked his answering machine. No new messages. He checked the phone for a dial tone. “It’s working.” Rex grumbled with great disappointment.

He sat down at the kitchen table and cleaned his gun. He looked around his empty house. No television. No radio. No reading material. Just an old wall phone (that wasn’t ringing). “Someone must need my service,” he said to the Beretta. He cleaned the rest of his guns. When he was done he took a shower. Looked into the mirror and huffed, “I hate getting the shotgun blues.”

"Shotgun Blues"

Copyright: © 2009 Chad Case

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Chad Case lives in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, with his wife, Melissa. He enjoys writing short horror fiction in his spare time. To date his works have been published on MicroHorror.com, The New Flesh Blogzine, Flashes In The Dark, and in the anthology: Toe Tags.

I can’t feel you anymore.

I woke this morning and sensed the absence of you. It used to be that I was more aware of you than my own breathing. Your thoughts ran a sort of wavelength beneath my own: a form of wordless background noise. That is the way that I remember it, as far back as I’ve known you. This empathy is part of what bound us together from the beginning

I know you so well. I know your routine.

Sometimes, I’d count your footsteps as you crossed the kitchen floor above me.

You have your morning coffee with a cigarette. You like eggs and bacon, toast buttered thickly.

I miss the sound of the radio playing. I miss that song that comes on every afternoon. It’s an old rock song about standing in the darkness and not being forgotten.

I can relate.

It’s only been two weeks I’ve been here, but it feels so much longer. I may not have been the perfect wife, but I loved you fiercely. I told you from the beginning that I was different.

And you knew that, didn’t you? We have known each other since we were little more than children. Surely an ordinary woman could not read your mind.

You loved me back then, didn’t you? We spent our teens together and married young. Somewhere in this basement , I still have our wedding album.

We were happy back then.

That was before you realized the truth.

I trusted you. And I shouldn’t have.

You never minded at all when I worked my abilities to your benefit. Mind control is such a subtle thing. A little push here, a tug there. Make that banker give you a loan for your construction business it should never have qualified for. Make your rivals meet with unfortunate , deadly accidents. Who would think anything of it? Yours is a perilous business. Men have been known to be crushed , buried or electrocuted by poor machinery.

A mere suggestion could solve so many problems.

I think what happened to your brother was too much. His blood was thicker than anything I had to offer you, wasn’t it? How many times can I apologize? All I can say is that he came after me. I am your wife. Some boundaries should be respected. Yes, I killed him. I made his heart stop. There was an artery, with the slightest defect which he’d had since birth. And with a little push, the quickest of thoughts, I was able to make it collapse.

To everyone, this was a tragedy, the natural death of a man in his prime. I am sorry for the pain this has caused you. But he got what he deserved.

I saw how you stared at me during the funeral. You knew.
So, you put me down here, in the basement. It was to protect everyone from me, you said.

Who, my darling, did you think would protect you?

I never imagined, with all the love between us that I could hate you. Life shows us things we cannot imagine.

Yesterday morning, I closed my eyes and thought of you. I pictured you sitting at the kitchen table, eating your eggs. And I imagined what it would be like if your throat started to constrict. How your eyes would widen because you couldn’t swallow.

It will take another day or so before they find your body slumped over the table. They will find me locked in the basement. I will tell them how stricken with grief you were, and that you locked me down here for two weeks.

That much won’t be a lie.

Maybe, if you hadn’t been alone, I could have helped you. Maybe if you hadn’t locked me away in the basement, you wouldn’t have choked and died on your own gall.

It’s over now, my darling. I wish you peace. Better yet, I promise it.

You won’t forget me.

"Don't Forget Me"
Copyright: © 2009 Lori Titus
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.
When the first octopus fell from the clouds, Daniel Berck, a local evolutionist who witnessed the event, was sorely disappointed. He had always envisioned the mass exodus of invertebrates to undoubtedly originate from the sea, not drop into a cornfield. The creature, who when stretched out horizontally was the length of an average man, had yet to learn vocalization. Somehow it managed to burrow its name in the black soil with a fluid, almost cursive penmanship: Staam.

The scientific community was baffled. Through some harried diplomatic intervention, Staam was granted immediate political asylum. The philanthropic interest of a particularly keen lobbyist afforded the creature access to the remote beach of Jekyll Island off the south-eastern coast of Georgia. Over the next several weeks, Staam constructed what appeared to be a craggy garden composed of broken seashells and other miscellaneous ocean crustaceans.

Tourists snapped pictures of the beautifully-sculpted plot, and with downcast eyes, expressed only terrible pity for the obviously lonesome artist.

The following Sunday, the second octopus dropped from the sky into the center of Central Park in New York City. A third sighting purported a twenty-foot octopus squirming across a busy intersection in downtown Los Angeles.

During the press conference on Jekyll Island the following day, one reporter remarked that Staam’s so-called garden bore a striking resemblance to a medieval fortress.

Moments later, Staam wriggled through the knotted gate and rose vertically on two unusually long appendages. The crowd of paparazzi and government officials were stunned to silence. Staam continued to stretch four of his spotted tentacles up and above his muscular head. He closed his immense eyes and began to hum as he swayed side to side.

From behind his swollen mass came the clamor of clattering machinery, churning the agitated cogs and barnacled levers painstakingly crafted from mollusks and sand dollars. The illustrious device of his unique garden construct had sprung to life.

"What does it do?” One brave reporter queried over the sound. “What is it for?”

“Progress,” was the first and only word Staam ever spoke.

Then the great machine, adrift in deep, resonant vibrations, proceeded to toss men through the sky.

"Evolution"

Copyright: © 2009 Angel Zapata

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Angel Zapata often wishes he could commute to work via dropping down a well. That way, he could come crawling out of any TV like that darling, little girl from The Ring. Recent fiction has been published or is forthcoming in the Toe Tags Anthology, House of Horror's Best of 2009 Anthology, Mausoleum Memoirs, Flashes in the Dark, The New Flesh, Twisted Tongue, Morpheus Tales, and Flashshot. Visit his blog: http://arageofangel.blogspot.com

.

Betsy Boo did not live in a shoe. She lived in a large house with colorful walls, nice furniture, and a kitchen decorated in the finest décor. Since cows were her favorite, she had pictures of them grazing in fields or stickers stuck on the door of the refrigerator. There was even a clock in the shape of one, mooing every time the clock struck the hour.

Anyhow, she was an overly-compulsive-lady who kept the house clean. Any crevice where dirt lay had no chance of survival from her cleaner and rag. She would swipe the spot clean of dirt so it would shine, shine, shine.

One day, she felt as if someone was looking at her through the window. When she turned, no one was there. It gave her a slight chill, but she quickly brushed it off, thinking that it was only her imagination.

So, as the day progressed she went outside and slipped into her car. It was always a mystery to her that she did not ever have to steer the wheel because it delivered her exactly where she wanted to go, across the soft terrain of the ground, to her boyfriend’s house. His place was a bit smaller and looked as if it needed some work - a good cleaning I should add. Though, it didn’t stop her from enjoying her time with him.

To Betsy, he was very nice, sincere, and above all, handsome.

Soon, after eating lunch and drinking a cup of coffee, Betsy was sitting in her car and on the way back home. She felt her visits were never long enough. But, oh well. That night, while she sat in her favorite recliner, relaxing from cleaning the kitchen, she once again felt a presence looking at her through the window. And, as before, when she turned to look, it was gone.

This time it really gave her a chill!

So, the following day, while cleaning, she heard something rustle behind her. To her horror, coming through the front door was a gigantic hand. She froze. She tried to let lose a scream, but it stopped in her throat. She pressed against the wall and as it pulled her out of her house, she dangled in mid-air, inches from a large blue eye. A huge smile grew under a plump nose and the breath of chocolate and peanut butter covered her face.

From above, another giant hand reached down and wrenched Betsy Boo’s head off. Oddly, feeling no pain, watching as she drew away from her headless body, her head was placed on the ground.

And what came next was even more horrifying.

Another woman’s head was snapped onto Betsy’s body.

Betsy wanted to scream. She watched as the giant placed Betsy’s old body with the new woman’s head back into her house.

Now, she was mad!

Darkness came hours later as the head of Betsy still lay on the ground, forgotten. She would have figured the least the giant could do was to bury her properly. It was very rude.

So, Betsy decided to get her body back and return to her house. Whatever it took. How dare some huge hand steal her away from her own house! How dare some other woman come in and snatch away her only body and live in her house! Then, another terrified thought arrived: Charles, her boyfriend. Would this woman steal her love?

Now, she was not only mad, but furious!

Slowly, she managed to rock back and forth and roll her head toward the house. Luckily the ground was soft. If it had been hard, she figured she might have come away with a few bruises. In no time, the head of Betsy arrived on the porch.

Using her cheek, she tried to open the front door. It was unlocked! Good. Darkness fell inside with a spear of light coming through one window. She rolled inside and her eyes caught the silhouette of the woman sitting in a chair. Her favorite chair where she always relaxed after a tiring day of cleaning!

This would not do.

She rolled over to the woman’s feet and bumped them. Nothing happened. She bumped them again. It took three tries when, finally, the woman awoke.

She stirred in her seat.

“Hey!” Betsy shouted. “You there! Get out of my house and give me back my body!”
The woman peered down at her, shocked, and drew in a deep breath. “Wh-what do you want?” the lady asked.

“You have my body! I want it back!” barked Betsy.

“Your body? It’s mine!” the woman defended.

“How could it be yours? I had it first!”

The woman began to say something, then let lose a chuckle.

“What’s so funny!”

“Look at me. Can’t you see my face? We are one in the same. We both share this body. I’m Betsy Boo and so are you.”

“What? What did you say?”

The woman leaned forward, where the light could show off her facial features.

Betsy snuffed a scream.

It was the same face as Betsy, but with different colored long hair, green eyes, and a different shade of lipstick.

“We are both Betsy Boo,” the woman explained. “We came out of a package. We are only dolls, my dear...”

.

* * *

.

The next day the giant stepped into the room. When Betsy’s head was discovered, it was snatched out of the house and stuck onto the shoulders of another doll who wore pink colored pajamas with a picture of a frog sewn into the chest. Her new body was placed up high on the shelf as she watched the “other” Betsy Boo get into the car and drive straight to Charles’ house.

Betsy grumbled and under her breath said: “Two-timer!”

"Betsy Boo"
Copyright: © 2009 Brick Marlin
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Married to a woman who keeps him chained up in a room so he won't try and escape from home and turn his fiction into reality, Brick Marlin resides in the Ohio Valley. Brick has written and published numerous short stories and novels. His books include The Darkened Image, Raising Riley, Saturated and Crimson, and his most recent Dark Places of Rest.