“Stop it, it doesn’t bend that way!” Carl cried out.
Mackenzie laughed, and with a quick jerk she broke his forearm.
“Oh, look at that! It did bend after all.” She placed the barrel under Carl’s jaw.
“James, dear, would you like to teach your father how to make a killshot?”
The boy reached for the trigger guard.
“James, please. I’m sorry. I love…”
The shot entered Carl’s throat and exited from the neck, shattering his spine. He felt the immense pain in his head at the same time he lost the feeling in his legs. He was paralyzed, but he didn’t die.
“That looks bad my love. Let me kiss it and make it all better.”
Mackenzie’s mouth opened wider than was naturally possible, and she started to regurgitate wet soil onto Carl. Among the soil there were twigs and rotten leaves, and as they piled on Carl’s face he could feel something squirming inside the mixture.
He tried to scream, but his mouth was immediately filled with the putrid paste coming from his wife’s mouth. Something crawled from the soil onto his cheek, and he felt a sting as whatever it was started to burrow into his flesh.
He tried to beg for his life, but his wriggling just allowed the thing to slip down his throat into his stomach. He was gagging, and the forest denied him the comfort of unconsciousness.
The stone structure was humming.
Carl felt the thing reach his belly. It was pushing out barbs along its entire length, punching holes into Carl’s windpipe and stomach lining. He shook as his body went into shock, his insides filling with solid wetness. His limbs welled up like balloons, and as they burst they spewed out soil that burrowed thin, root-like tendrils onto the ground. He was decomposing, even as he was still alive.
He tried to scream, but could only muster a muffled wail. Even if he could have cried for help there was no one there to respond. He was all alone in the clearing, slowly dying next to an ancient stone structure which had been erected by God knows who.
Thomas Wake
About the Author
Thomas was born into the harsh winters in the Nordic Finland. Tempered by the shamanic winds, thousand lakes with a thousand stories, the whispers of the birch filled forests, he fell in love with horror at the render age of 6 when he saw Re-Animator. That led him to search for the source story and that was it. Cosmic horror wrapped it’s nebulous tentacles around his imagination and it has been feeding it ever since. Consuming book after book, he realized his dream; to be a writer. And that dream has guided him his entire life.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThomasWake12
Hollow Woods
Brian Duncan
“Emma Charles, if you don’t get down here right now I’m not taking you to the park!”
Emma’s head snapped around at the sound of her father’s voice. She was elbow deep in LOL Dolls, trying to decide which would be the least baby one to bring with her. Truth be told she wasn’t sure any of them would make the cut. Her open backpack next to her contained only her sunblock, a towel, and her phone. If girls in Florida were into dolls or makeup or anything like that she was going to be woefully lacking.
She threw two dolls into the bag, studied their babyish faces, and tossed them back into her closet. She should have asked what games they were going to play today.
“Emma!”
“I’m coming right down,” she shouted. Her father would be standing at the bottom of the stairs, glaring upward toward her room, his keys in his hand. He was the most impatient person on Earth. It wasn’t even his hangout.
Resigned to a doll-less afternoon, she zipped her bag closed.
“See,” she said as she crested the second floor landing, “here I am. You don’t have to yell.”
“Yes I do, because if I don’t yell for at least five minutes it will already be dark when we get in the car.” Emma rolled her eyes, and her father’s tone lightened. “You look beautiful today.”
“Dad, knock it off,” she said, rolling her eyes again.
“I can’t help it. You’re so cute.”
“And you’re a dork. Can we go? I’m waiting on you, you know.” Smiling he bowed low, extending a hand to the front door. Emma smiled. She had been nervous about what to wear to a wilderness park that was also a beach (she thought her canvas shorts and denim top might be too dorky.) His compliment helped ease her mind, even if he was being a dork about it.
On the road her dad sang to old music he swore was from the best decade ever, even though it sounded like distortion and whining to her. Why did everyone from the best decade repeat the same lyrics over and over a hundred times?
Twenty minutes into the drive she turned to her dad. “How much longer is it?”
“At least fifteen minutes,” he told her.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Hey, your little friends are the ones that wanted to have a day at a place way out of town called Nate’s Hell.”
“God Dad, you’re so clueless. It’s called Tate’s Hell, not Nate’s Hell.” She dug through her backpack to reveal her phone.
“Tate’s Hell? Oh, no, I think that’s the other way,” he teased. “We might have to turn around and drive another hour and a half.”
“Very funny. Oh, crap.”
“Don’t say crap,” he told her. “What’s wrong?”
“My phone’s going to die.” She swiped through a spider web of cracks to scan her social media pages. When there weren’t any updates she sent a group text to Kayla and Caroline. 15 min out. B there soon.
“You know you can always call me to come get you if you get freaked out, right?” Her dad asked her.
“I’m not calling you, and I’m not getting freaked out.” Her phone chimed as Kayla responded they were at marker 45 in a gazebo. Caroline didn’t text in.
“I’m just saying that it’s the first time out with your new friends, and it’s perfectly
