Tim Mendees
About the Author
Tim Mendees is a horror writer born in Macclesfield in the North-West of England. He has recently been published in Twenty Twenty (Black Hare Press,) Death and Butterflies (suicide House Publishing,) Solitude (DBND Publishing,) and has had several short stories accepted for publication in forthcoming anthologies and magazines. His debut novella ‘Miracle Growth’ is coming soon from Black Hare Press.
Tim is an active and recognisable figure in the UK Goth scene in his role as DJ, promoter and podcaster. He currently lives in Brighton & Hove with his pet crab, Gerald, and an army of stuffed cephalopods.
https://www.facebook.com/goatinthemachine
https://www.amazon.com/Tim-Mendees/e/B082VMY727/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_5
Dig
Elizabeth Nettleton
It kept telling him to dig.
The voice whispered through the trees, soft and urgent, following him as he made his way into the woods. He reached a small clearing and the voice lay with him upon the soft ground, an unwelcome companion while he waited for the kill he so desperately needed.
Dig.
“Be quiet,” he hissed, his lips grazing the dirt beneath him.
“What?” a small voice asked.
Dom looked over his shoulder. His son Peter gazed back at him, his brow furrowed over his large blue eyes.
“Nothing,” Dom said. “I didn’t say anything.”
A doe made slow, careful steps in front of them, her brown fur dappled in the disappearing sunlight. Her nose twitched.
“Can she smell us, Dad?”
Dom placed a finger to his mouth and moved his other hand to his gun. Peter began to whimper.
“I don’t want her to die, Dad.”
“It’s either her or us, Peter. We need to eat.”
Peter buried his face in the dirt, and soon two lines of mud traced their way down his cheeks. The doe glanced in their direction and then ran, her long limbs tossing her into the brush surrounding them. Dom pounded his fist onto the ground.
“Don’t you understand, Pete? I don’t like hunting either, but we need the food. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the people we love.”
“Aren’t there other sacrifices we could make?”
Dig.
Dom twitched. “Stop saying that!” he snapped.
“Saying what?”
He stared at his son’s tear-streaked face. “Not you. I was…I thought I heard something.”
Peter pulled himself to his feet and peered into the trees. “I don’t see anything. Does anything around here hunt people?”
An owl screeched behind them, and Dom jumped. His gun fell to its side and he picked it up with clumsy fingers. “I guess there might be some wild cats around. But otherwise no, not out here. I’ve been hunting in these woods since I was a kid, and it’s only the other hunters you need to watch out for.”
“Are there any other hunters out here tonight?”
Dig.
“No,” Dom said firmly. He stood and wiped his hands against his pants. “We should move. That doe ain’t coming back, and we need to bring something home for your mom.”
There was a flash of brown and white ahead, and he guided Peter through the tangled branches to meet it. Thin twigs snapped under their heavy boots, and Dom wondered, not for the first time, whether he should have gone out alone.
“Did you go hunting with your dad?” Pete whispered as he stepped over a large rock.
“Yeah, right up until I was about your age.”
Dig.
Dom swatted the air in front of him. “Stop it!”
“Stop what?”
Something moved above them, and Dom found himself staring into the flaming, red eyes of a vireo bird. It opened its wings and sang, then paused and sang again, repeating itself in case they wished to sing along.
Dig. Dig. Dig. Dig. Dig.
Peter grinned and jumped from one foot to the other. “Dig! Dig! Dig! Dig! Dig!”
“You hear it too?” Dom asked, staring at the bird.
“Hear what? Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Peter said. He pursed his lips and tried to whistle the bird’s song. “Ooh, ooh, ooh!”
“I really wish you would stop doing that,” Dom said through gritted teeth. Sweat pricked the back of his neck.
Peter’s smile fell, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Sorry, Dad. I just really wanted to dig.”
“What?” Dom demanded.
“I just really wanted to sing, like the bird. Are you okay, Dad?”
“I’m fine, Peter!” Dom snarled. He hurled his gun over his shoulder and marched deeper into the woods. Long, wooden fingers scratched his face, and Peter panted as he tried to catch up.
“Why did you stop hunting with Grandpa?”
Why did we stop hunting together? He paused, struggling to remember. The memories pulled away and returned in fragments, revealing themselves to him piece by piece.
“He left us,” Dom said slowly. “We went hunting one day and didn’t get anything. It was a bad hunt.”
“Like today?”
Dig.
Dom’s neck cracked as he turned to look at Peter. “Yeah, a bit like today, bud. And we went home, and Grandma got…I think Grandma got mad at Grandpa…”
No, that wasn’t right. His mother was mad at him, not his dad. His fingernails were filthy, he remembered, caked with dirt and torn by stones. She scrubbed his fingertips until he wept, and scolded him for walking through the woods all alone. His eyes had flashed at her, indignant. She was a fool. He was a child of those woods; nothing could harm him out there.
Dig.
“We dug a trap!” Dom cried out. “That’s what happened. We dug a trap and then Dad sent me home while he waited for some dumb animal to walk into it.”
“Animals aren’t dumb, Dad,” Peter said reproachfully. Dom waved his hand at his son and grinned.
“We’re going to dig a trap, son. Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig.”
“But we don’t have any tools!”
Dom leaned forward until their foreheads touched. “We’ll do it the old-fashioned way: with our hands.”
“I don’t know, Dad,” Peter said. He turned his face away from Dom. “I don’t feel so good. Can’t we just go home?”
“Not until we catch something, Pete. Now, get digging.”
Dom threw himself to the ground and grabbed frantically at the earth. Roots and stones tore
