More micro fictions!
Damned
By Laura Nettles
Eyes glow with the fires of hell. He opens wide his jaw, consuming the pitiful humans. Arms rip and flesh tares under his powerful, tombstone teeth, each the size of a mountain. The names of the devoured etch upon the enamel, joining the list of the dead. The damned. Those pathetic enough have murdered in cold blood. Reaped for justice. Eaten for revenge.
Maggot Candy
By Laura Nettles
The eyes were delectable, but not as filling as the promised marrow. Your thousands of brothers and sisters writhe in the flesh surrounding you, all trying to burrow and strip the carcass to the tasty skeleton. Reveal the candy. Vultures swoop and peck, breaking apart the sun-bleached bones into shards, revealing your dreams made physical. At last, the sweet marrow passes through your suckling jaws. Nirvana.
Color of Bone
By Laura Nettles
Matilda had always wondered if people’s bones were white. The animals on the side of the road had white ones protruding from their rotting flesh whenever she rode by them on her bike. The library had to have the answer. Parking her bike with training wheels next to the door, she strode in, small dress fluttering in the breeze. Ms. Sarah was very obliging, showing illustrations of human skeletons to her. But how did they know? How had the artists discovered what they looked like to draw them? She had to verify it for herself. Her brother would do nicely.
Malice
By Laura Nettles
Her tongue cuts both ways, with both sarcasm and spite in alternate swings. She flays him alive and leaves him to die with his dignity shredded in front of the entire royal court. Lands stripped; titles revoked. The queen gives one last word to seal his fate: “quarter.”
The horses pull to the four compass points. Joints strain, pop, then sever. Innards exposed to the buzzards, he begs for mercy, screaming to the heavens. Screaming to the queen.
Her eyes narrow in contempt, her fan snapping shut. The sun hides its face from her gaze as she steps down from the observation deck. She glides in full skirts through the dry, dusty courtyard to the man. She leans forward, studying the lines of hope forming on his face, and draws her tongue. “Pull slower.”
Hungry Curls
By Laura Nettles
My hair is voluminous. And hungry. Long curls like to catch whatever passes too closely to my head and consume them. At night, I wash out the remains of the poor things my hair had eaten and towel dry the best I can. It’s not enough. As I sleep on damp strands, they slither on to find more things to turn into carcasses and ingest. From cats to actual rat’s nests, nothing is safe. Medusa’s tame mane did less damage to local wildlife than my mop. The worst is when I wake up sooner then expected and the trapped, writhing creatures are still alive. Screaming. Begging for mercy, before their necks are snapped by ringlets. I wish I had straight hair.
Demon of Spring
By Laura Nettles
The skin peels from their back in four large strips. A breeze makes them flutter in the breeze like the wings they are morphing into. Another head with huge, faceted eyes comes through the human mouth, the human grin splitting to accommodate. The skull is now a decoration of death upon the thorax. Appendages sluff off extra human flesh, revealing thin black legs where the skeleton should be. Tailbone elongates and straightens, piercing through the skin, a sharpened stinger. Buzzing filles the air as the wings take flight. A demon of spring released.