With that, I left, leaving Herald on the landing, his
wife finally joining him on the stairs.
* * *
My back digging into the wall, I stood in a quiet
alley a block away from the Foster house. The jagged red
brick poked through the heavy material of my coat,
reaching my skin, like little needles on tender flesh. The
pain felt good. It reminded me that I was still alive and
kept me at-the-ready, though, at that moment, I longed for
death. I couldn’t shake the familiar feeling of the past.
Emily. Her long dark hair, her bright smile. The sunshine
that made my day happy – gone. My eyes blurred the more
I remembered Emily, the pain in my back nothing to what
I felt in my heart. Why? Why must I endure her death every time
I call on a patient? First, Sara Holstadtler, then the little boy
outside my hotel, now Dylan Foster.
I unconsciously took out my flask from the inside
pocket of my coat and guzzled the contents. The flask
drained of its translucent red liquid, my legs let go. As I
slid down the brick wall, every bump and scratch burned
into my skin. I didn’t care anymore.
Brenda Stephens is a gothic and horror short fiction writer who’s influenced
by Edgar Allan Poe and Anne Rice. She crafted her first play at 6 years
old and accumulated a huge collection of short stories by age 15. However,
at 16, she watched her work burn in a freak car fire. Afterwards, she
couldn’t find the creative muse to write another short story, though she
continued to write screenplays. Over 20 years later, she’s finally writing
again. She holds an M.A. in English and Creative Writing with a focus in
Screenwriting and teaches college composition at two Ohio universities.
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