tiny frights volume 3 issue 1, Walpurgis 2024

One taste was all it took.

Maple Ridge's sap trees produced rapturous syrup, an insatiable desire as it coated the throats of the townspeople. Desperate cravings consumed them whole, draining the trees dry of their bounty. Filling their bellies until they could no more.

And when the supply ran out, they tapped their own veins to consume what may be left. Sticky, crimson sludge dribbling down their chins. Sucking themselves dry, one by one.

The need slowly turned to madness, driven into the shadows to stalk the unsuspecting. Draining them dry of their sap.

Establishing a new grove to tap.

They say you are what you eat. I've always wanted to be an alpha male, but I've already eaten three of them and so far nothing has changed.

A fluorescent-lit lab, reeking of antiseptic. The grandmotherly phlebotomist coaches the patient to breathe as her needle bites into his vein. Blood gushes into vial after vial.

"Seems like a lot." He nods at several tubes with black labels set aside in a separate tray. "How many tests did my doctor order?"

She hums a soothing tune, pressing cotton to his arm.

He leaves depleted and dizzy. He does not see the creatures congregating at the lab's loading dock door. Waiting.

When sunset turns the sky crimson, the phlebotomist swaps her black-labeled Vacutainers for the cash stuffed in their claws.

Abu Hashara is built atop a hill in the desert, where the views of the night sky are so clear that you can observe strange phenomena not even the learned men of Maragha and Samarkand can see through their telescopes. The city has grown around the great observatory, and, since the astronomers work at night, so too do the city residents. During the day, the dusty streets are deserted; you will not find even a dog cowering in the shadows of an alley. Doors are shut tight and windows barred. But at night, the residents come out and the air is thick with the cries of merchants and whores, sooth-sayers and sorcerers. Artificial lights are forbidden here, since they interfere with the work of the astronomers, but you will know when you speak to a local and in the darkness gleaming see wet white skin as pale as a grub, pallid cheeks laced with spidery blue veins, and dark purple things the color of infection, things that once were eyes, many generations ago, bulging and throbbing in sockets—you will know that the people of Abu Hashara had lived in the dark for a very long time indeed.

The pounding in your head's a motherfucker. Look around. Cocktail dresses and business suits, the uniform of the enemy. How did you get here? Pain. Cold sharp static hammering away at the meat inside your skull. And your guts. Like someone emptied out your abdominal cavity and replaced your intestines with ten handgun magazines and a pistol. Wait. Things are coming back to you. Slowly. You're behind enemy lines. Everyone's staring at you. Must have made a scene. Can't remember. Look for the bravest one. Take them out first. Deal with the rest after. There they are. Their eyes are calculating, full of piss and vinegar and courage and resolve. They're staring at you now. They're ready to take you out. You approach each other. Once you're close, you both grab for each other's throat. Pain. Bent knuckles. Take a second. Re-orient yourself. Your fingers slid against cold glass. A mirror. Change of plans. The bravest fucker dies last. A woman behind you is on the phone, speaking quickly and quietly. You tear at a seam on your lime green cocktail dress and plunge through the stitches just below your sternum. Puncture some membrane inside. In the membrane, your hand fits in the handle perfectly. You pull your weapon from within. There's blood, but not as much as you imagined. Preparation. Cauterized Arteries. The woman behind you tells everyone the police will be here in two minutes. You turn and make a quick head count. 63 of them. Plenty of time.

"Everything you think you know about witches is wrong," Selena sobbed. She struggled against the ropes binding her to the pole.

Father Hugo stuffed kindling under the logs at her feet. He cocked an eyebrow skeptically. "Everything?"

"Everything," Selena insisted.

"Brewing potions?"

"Wrong."

"Casting spells?"

"Wrong!"

Father Hugo lit a match.

"Shapeshifting?"

Suddenly, Selena's face elongated into a long black beak. Feathers sprouted as massive wings unfolded from her back.

Her raven form lunged, driving her beak straight through Father Hugo's face.

As Selena returned to her human shape, she wiped the blood from her mouth.

"Okay, maybe not everything."

The man in the dark knee length trench coat had travelled miles from his home on that moonlit night. He knew his way well from experience. His luck was good as always, there was a couple in a new sedan, her with her hand in his lap, kissing him on the face. Perfect.

He pulled open the door and as she pulled away from the man he saw the blade in the man's chest, then he was in the street bleeding out. She smiled down at him. "You thought that you were the only serial killer in town."

The Beech's roots grip the soil above the ground. Its branches stir in the wind, restless in the urge to join the invisible rush of horizontal gravity.

But it waits.

It waits till the night, till its knothole eyes reflect the silver moon.

In the dusk, the Beech loosens its taloned grasp on the earth, jerking its roots free and shaking out the loose dirt. The mice and the rabbits and deer scatter, even though the Beech has never stalked them before. The Beech spreads its enormous branches to its full 70-foot span. It takes to the sky like a rent in a stocking, tearing through the air with that horrendous screech. Something prehistoric, a vast predatory thing, it poses as a tree with root-like talons, and feathers that pass as leaves.

Yet it is not a tree. It is a Beech. It soars near to cities and plants itself in the outskirts. Its screech resounds through the urban environment like a siren's call. The loggers and the tree-trimmers and all those that own a chainsaw within hearing find themselves awake and agog with desire: they must find this tree and cut it down!

The Beech closes its reflective eyes and clenches the soil with its claws. It waits till they are in range, mimicking their natural prey.

Then it strikes. It drags them underground.

The screaming and the pulping and the popping last for mere seconds. It digests, then it takes to the skies, its talons bloody, to hide once more in the forest among the real trees.

Tender love. Tender foot. Tender thoughts and prayers. Tender heart. Tender flesh, melted by worms and soil. Tender meat, falling off the chewed-up bone. Tender juices, chemical flow through porous layers. Red beet. Red pepper. Red spinach. Red cabbage. Red potato. Harvest is good this year, thanks to our new fertilizer. One less thing to worry about.

The night crew is heading out for the next Catch. Security is higher. But, no matter. The soil demands. The hole is dug. The IV lines prepped. The mulch piled. Seedlings ready for transplant. A fresh worm bucket pre-filled. The gardens must expand to feed the hungry. Absorbing inflated egos and their rich-in-nutrients bodies.

Of course, we'll find something to do with all of Catch's money.

Ever wonder about the people who visit your town's cemetery? An elderly couple overseeing a relative? Unruly kids drunk on cheap beer? Two immature adults in the heat of naked wrestling?

You know what happens to them?

I know... and I won't tell.

If you need to know, then I have some suggestions.

Don't go alone and don't go at night, especially at midnight.

When you go, walk to where you think they were. If you can't remember, your conscience is trying to tell you something.

Then, look down.

A freshly filled grave underneath your feet might clue you in.

Jen's relief when the Nurse left at six pm was short-lived because the anxiety of facing her tomorrow would start to build. She'd called her son on the mobile recently to tell him what she was like (it had taken weeks to get the confidence) but she should have expected his reaction. "Like the monster you hear at night, mum?"

"It's not a monster. It's—I don't know what it is, but it growls outside as soon as the sun goes down."

"Mum," said Mike. His tone made Jen want to tear things up. "Just see how you get on, eh? For me?"

"OK."

The Nurse arrived. "Not pissed yourself today then?" She scrubbed Jen roughly and fed her slimy food. That afternoon she went to the next room to answer her phone. "Yeah, still a miserable cow. Just stares at me. Can't clean her, can't feed her, can't do anything without her complaining. Spoilt by her parents, spoilt by her husband and now spoilt by her kids." She was so loud her voice reverberated, there was no effort to hide it. Quite the opposite, she wanted to hurt. She bustled back in, "Come on, time for exercises."

"Can't today."

"Arms out."

"Oh," Jen shrieked.

Tutting, the Nurse tried to pull her up from the floor, but Jen was a dead weight. "Come on, you old cow," she fumed, eventually getting her back in the chair, "I'm late now." She hurried out the door just as the noises began, deep growls followed by crunching. The Nurse didn't arrive in the morning.

I don't know where I am now, but I remember where I come from.

Words I cling to nightly before sleep steals me away. Sleep is just another doorway, and every door here leads to elsewhere.

This was not always the way. Once I lived in houses. Once I had a Mom. I think she died of cancer. Then fosters locked me away.

A dark place. Cold and lonely. Rats to gnaw my blanket. A plate of rotten food, once a day.

The door saved me. A door of possibilities. A door of sure escape.

I never wondered where it led to. Anywhere was better. I'd die in that bitter place.

But these doors are endless pathways. Untethered in shifting space. Turn a corner—you're in the ocean. Find a sunken ship before you drown. Dive through the open porthole and you tumble into desert. Survive the snakes and heatstroke until you dig out an empty tomb.

And that door leads you elsewhere, and on and on and on.

I have lived so many places, always passing, never stopping, losing pieces of myself.

Every door leads somewhere—everywhere but out.

I want a door back to my mother. To a place where she is well. Some door surely leads there. I will find it if I search.

I don't remember who I am now, but I know where I must go.

Mother, if you can hear me. Mother, I'm coming home.

The ripples in the sidewalk don't concern me. I work in a tenth-story urban development office; what should the state of the pavement matter to me? The gray sky spits a few droplets, but I'm not far from my office, with its sign Take Back the City in the window.

A woman trips where the concrete has buckled, catches herself, and hurries on. Lately, between the headlines—disappearing rainforests, loss of plant biodiversity—scientists speculate on what could cause undulations in the asphalt.

The ground rumbles. A sidewalk crack widens. People back away from the spot. I step into the street to go around the gap.

A horn blares. I leap back to the curb amid cries from passersby. "I'm fine, it was only a—" I begin.

Something hits my back. I turn, indignant. But the strike didn't come from a person. A plant stem juts from the pavement, growing as I watch. Its leaves arc overhead. More stalks break through blacktop around me. The upheaval tosses cars aside. Broken pavement casts pedestrians to their knees. Some scream. Some come up bloody. Others don't come up at all.

Skyscrapers tremble. Windows shatter. But I must be close to safety; my workplace is two doors down.

The stems shoot higher, as big as redwoods. They tower over people and vehicles, rivaling buildings, blotting out the sunlight. As I sprint for my workplace, vines envelop the lobby, twining around the words Take Back the City. The plants break the glass. Shards rain over me, slicing my face to the bone.

The Mari Lwyd drifted towards Leo, trailing long ribbons that danced in an unseen wind. Bits of food tumbled from its bony jaws.

"Please," Leo sobbed. "We have nothing left to eat."

The eyeless ostler blocking the door whispered, "Sing."

"I told you I don't know any Welsh songs. We're only here visiting on holiday."

Charlotte stood slumped in the corner, slack and vacant. She hadn't moved since the Mari Lwyd stole something from her mind.

The white skull nipped at Leo. Leo tried to shield his face and earned himself a horse bite on his hand. Blood trickled down his thumb onto the kitchen floor.

"Just leave," Leo begged. "You've already taken everything."

"Not everything," said the ostler. "Not yet."

The grinning skull opened wide.

"Now sing."

When I found the first doll, deep in the dirt in the stone-walled garden behind the ivy-strewn Henge House, I didn't understand. First I spotted the top of its creamy porcelain head, gleaming from a patch of weeds. With the aid of a nearby rock I loosened the soil around it until I could get a good grip and, working it back and forth while tugging gently upwards, I managed to pry it loose, like a ripe turnip. It was a battered babydoll, unclothed, closed-eyed, and caked with filth. Its arms and legs were bound to its body with twine; on its back was a single word, barely legible in crimson script: Hamish.

When it dropped and hit the ground, the doll's head cracked like a boiled egg. A spider skittered out on whispery legs and disappeared into a patch of clover. Stepping back, I could see the shiny-smooth heads of a dozen more dolls, two dozen, four, a hundred. Enough dolls for every child in the village.

I ran home, barely beating the sunset.

The next morning, the thresher exploded on the Wilson farm. They found him in pieces, Hamish. I knew then what I had to do in the shadow-dappled dampness behind that stone wall. A garden needs tending.

And so everyday I keep them safe, twine tied tight, snug in the dirt. I'm careful not to pull them up.

Unless, of course, they need harvesting. Some do, you know.

"Hell of a honeymoon," Detective Garnish said, looking at the body of recently married and more recently deceased Royson Lancet, lying naked in the bed of the Hotel Muscatel Honeymoon Suite. His new bride Pinky was nowhere to be found.

"Hope he got to seal the deal before his demise," Detective Daikon, Garnish's new partner said.

Garnish moved closer, looking at the deep, bloody bite marks on Royson's neck.

"This is disturbing," Garnish said.

"Whoa!" Daikon said. "You think it's a vampire killing?"

"Let's not get carried away. All we have right now is a groom with a chew."

The dummy's teeth chattered all night. I buried my head in the pillow, but still couldn't drown out that smacking, nasal voice emanating from his wooden jaw.

"Make me famous, Charlie."

"I'm trying, Eddie."

"Not very hard!" I grit my teeth, but the complaints continued. It sounded like he was hissing directly into my right ear—heck, inside my head, even—which I knew couldn't be true.

"What have you gotten me lately—local radio? A birthday gig every two weeks, if? If this keeps up I'm gonna have to cut you loose, boss."

"Don't talk like that," I pleaded.

"Too late for apologies, Chuck." A creak of wood, and when he spoke again his voice was farther away. "Have a nice life."

It really did sound like he was walking out the door and leaving me this time. Another trick.

I hugged him closer and planted a kiss on his oak forehead. The dummy recoiled, face turning away from me. "Watch the slobber, Chuck, or you'll have to repaint me again."

"I thought you were leaving," I chided.

"Ehhhhh, maybe I'll stick around," he said. "Just do me a favor—stop hogging the covers."

He buried his face in my chest, and all was well.

"Goodnight, Charlie."

"Goodnight, Eddie."

Jameson surveyed the battle-scarred landscape. Shadows rose from the mud, moving through the fog obscuring the carnage. The sharp smell of cordite hung in the air. Jameson's ears were numb&the only sound was the agonizing wail of an injured soldier on the ground beneath him. Shrapnel had shredded the man's face; his stomach was a gurgling pile of entrails. Jameson read the patch on the man's blood-soaked uniform. The name was familiar: T. Jameson.

His own.

Damn it, Jameson thought, recalling the whistling of the incoming mortar. Direct hit.

He sighed, then joined the other shadows in the fog.