Felicity was feeding small bones into the earth. The polished fragments glistened ominously in the pale moonlight.
Michael watched her slip them out of a bloodstained canvas bag. She was kneeling by an old twisted tree in the center of a clearing and singing something indecipherable under her breath.
He had followed his older sister to the unhallowed ground. It was a long forgotten potter’s field from the turn of the century. Michael was hiding behind the cold slab of a stone grave.
“What is she doing?” Michael mumbled. He covered his mouth, worried that the soft breeze would carry his voice across the distance. Felicity proceeded without interruption.
She inserted bone after bone into the black space between the roots. When the bag was empty, she carefully smoothed out the wrinkles and slipped the handles over her shoulder.
“You won’t go hungry anymore,” she spoke softly to the dirt. “I promise you.”
It seemed his sister had been offering food to something.
Michael was frightened by her actions, but remained far more curious of her intent. Had she gone mad? Michael wondered. And where had she acquired the bones?
Felicity rose up from the ground and brushed bits of brown leaves off of her knees. She tossed her long red hair over her shoulder and giggled. “Good night, sweet monster,” she quipped, breaking into a quick run. She headed back home, skipping along the dirt road.
When Michael no longer heard his sister’s footfalls, he crept out of the shadows and nervously made his way to the tree. It was much taller than he first surmised, and the branches far more arthritic with age. As he neared the base of the disturbed earth, he heard the terrifying snap of what sounded like dry twigs. He froze in his tracks, squinting against the pressing darkness.
From the center of two enormous roots, mounds of soil and rock began to crumble forward. In predatory stealth, a hideously disfigured arm whipped out of the damp hole and wrapped its long, black fingers around a bone. There was a rustling of dead leaves as it slithered back down into its hellish lair.
Michael took a careful step backwards, and heard a deep, subterranean moan shudder beneath his feet.
Suddenly, the ground swelled and shot a vile plume of stinking dust ten feet into the air. A gigantic head, riddled with skittering insects, spun in his direction. Its thickly corded neck was covered in wet moss. Vacant eyes dripped with stagnant water. When it snapped open its jaws, a break in the clouds above Michael’s head revealed red gums punctured with fangs.
Michael was stunned to silence.
“Mother?” the creature wailed, exhaling noxious gases. “Mother? Have you come back for me?” Michael screamed and clawed desperately at his face, choking on the toxic fumes blown from the creature’s gaping mouth. In a blind panic, he tripped over a half-sunken tombstone.
“Oh, God! Please, I don’t want to die.” He curled himself into a ball and sobbed.
The creature began to drag itself closer.
“Michael!” Felicity’s voice rang out unexpectedly. “Oh, no! Why did you follow me here?”
“Felicity, run,” he tried, but couldn’t quite catch his breath. “It’ll kill you too.” He slowly rolled over on his back.
“Michael,” she said sadly. “My child couldn’t harm me. I’m immune.”
Michael’s body was swelling from the inhaled poison. He didn’t have much longer.
“That monster is your child?” He strained, uttering his last words.
Felicity collapsed to her knees, and gently stroked her brother’s face. “I’m so sorry, Michael.”
“Mother,” the creature called. “I hunger.”
“Hush now, baby!” Felicity ordered, wiping away tears. “Momma has work to do.” She composed herself and withdrew a sharp dagger from a leather sheath strapped to her leg. “You’ll have more than enough to eat.”
She screamed when she brought the knife down into her brother’s chest.
- Copyright: © 2008 Angel Zapata
