stand up and grab Sara’s hand as we move back to the
mine. It’s the kind of place I always wanted to play in.
It sounds like someone’s playing in there already.
pretty? “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“It’s dark in there,” she says.
We look in at the mine entrance, and a big wind hits us
in the face. We cough and stand quiet for a minute. We
listen. For a long time there’s nothing, and then someone laughs from far away.
“Come on,” I say.
I look in, and, sure enough, it’s darker than I would
have ever thought, darker than I’ve ever seen. “Good
for hide and seek,” I say.
I hold her hand tight, and we step forward. •
She laughs again. Did girls’ laug hs always sound so
The Victim
by Chad Wood
It was dark. The streetlights were spaced too far apart
to be helpful, leaving large gaps of black between dim,
flickering lights. She had taken a wrong turn at some
point and was now too lost to find her way back. This
was a bad part of town. A really bad part of town. The
clicking of her high heels against the sidewalk was amplified by the absence of other sound and seemed to
echo off of every building and down every alley. She
was nervous.
Pleading for the suffering to stop. The smell of blood
filled the air. And then the night went silent again.
She stumbled out of the alley, one of her shoes held
in her trembling hand. She was panting hard, covered
in blood and stab wounds but alive. They would heal.
The scars always healed. She wiped the blood from her
lips with a trembling wrist, looking down at it before
licking some off and savoring the taste. It had been
too long since she’d let instinct take over. Getting by
in polite society was hard and she always resisted the
hunger, but they deserved it. She slipped her other shoe
on and began to walk again, a bit more hustle in her
step. Maybe if she went left up here...or right? God, she
hated being lost.
The young woman turned her head to peer down an
alley. A group of five men were there, backs pressed
against the brick walls on either side of the one way
dead end street. She saw them and inhaled sharply.
They saw her and sneered. She ran. They chased. She
tripped on a large crack in the sidewalk. They laughed
and surrounded her, some drawing knives as they
pulled her up off of the ground. She cried out for help,
but she wouldn’t find it here. Even the cops wouldn’t
stop in this part of town. The five men disappeared into
the darkness of the alley, taking her along with them.
The five men laid dead in the alley, their throats torn
mercilessly out of their necks. Eyes gouged, chunks
of fleshed ripped from their bodies. All these parts
consumed and on the fast track to being digested in
the stomach of the woman who had gone from prey to
predator in the blink of an eye.
The sound of flesh ripping and shredding. Cries of pain.
Monday
Women can be werewolves, too. •
by Kevin J. Redmond
It was a Monday when it started.
it was a Monday.
I can’t recall the time. I don’t remember whether it was
raining, or if it was summer or winter. Maybe it was
snowing outside, or maybe it was sleeting. For all I know
it was a hurricane. I don’t know what they did with her,
either. I can’t remember any of these things, but I know
It’s always a Monday.
60
I sit in my rocking chair most days, reading one of the
many books I’ve already read countless times before.
They give me comfort. I lose myself in those familiar
October 2013
INSIGHT