Horror

Miranda “Dove” Tuesday, Janitor First Class, really doesn’t deserve what’s about to happen to her.

The story of Afterbirth, North Dakota first came to my attention through back issues of the Bismarck Daily Sentinel, which I was reading for my own private purposes. This was before the Great War, of course, and many of its pages were concerned with the tensions that anticipated it, but the paper still made space for local occurrences. Many of these were of little import: the winners of local contests, the highlights of a fair, a new building being erected to house the blighted state’s government, and … a stray mention of Afterbirth, found abandoned at high summer.

Olive couldn’t say how they met, afterwards. A consequence of the night’s debaucheries; loud music and frantic bodies and another drink, another line, always another—! And then waking up back home in her own bed, left to sort out what happened from the barest suggestions. Rumpled sheets, torn stockings, fresh bruises, all normal enough. And that new voice trickling into her DMs, so strangely familiar. She couldn’t help trusting it, even when it was so cagey about how they’d met and what happened and who it really was, and that should have been a warning sign, shouldn’t it?

There is an unpleasant smell in the garden; something not wholly subsumed by the freshly turned gravel and the scattered wood chips. An unfamiliar flower, perhaps, though to the Fulminous Princess’s practiced nose it has more in common with the exercise of power. She’d never thought that the stories about saint-sworn nuns were true, but …

Johanna sits in her accustomed chair, idly swirling the last drops of brandy around her glass. It’s a comfortable chair, well-positioned in one of the many nooks ringing the lounge’s floor; it gives her a good view of what’s going on, and a place to keep her papers. All of the other nooks are curtained booths with cushioned benches and high tables; hers is unique only because of her contributions to the social club. Rank brings its privileges, even when no one can quite say where one’s rank comes from—for despite it all, Johanna is merely a rat-catcher. ...

“Mom?” Sarah blinks herself awake. She fell asleep on the couch again, watching late-night comedy reruns after putting Abigail to bed, with only a half-empty bottle of wine and a tin of weed gummies for company. She blearily blinks at the young girl; god damn it, she promised not to let her see her like this again. “Wha-,” she coughs, “what is it, dear?” “Auntie wants to come in but I can’t open the door.”

The first shot is cinematically wide, obviously an anamorphic lens with a slow aperture. Everything is in focus: the ruins of fallen skyscrapers. The rubble-strewn beach. The smoking carcasses of tanks and troop carriers, and the cloudless sky above. Silent except for the wind. The ground shakes. A massive machine strides out of the ocean, up the beach. Two-legged, four-armed, festooned with armor and shields; a massive claymore strapped to its back. The overall impression is a polished and heavily armed sphere, its sharp angles accented by red strips. Patriotic music swells. ...

The surgeon is sprawled out on her living room couch when you arrive, flipping through screen after screen of beautiful people on her ancient phone. One of her housemates answered the door and let you inside, their too-perfect smile drying into a polished mask as they realized why you were there. The last words they said to you before they fled were a quiet “good luck.” She’s really not much to look at. Chubby and long-limbed, with oily shoulder-length hair. You can see her split ends from the doorway; it’s obvious that she’s never bothered to put proper care into them. Her clothes show a similar lack of effort, just loose grey sweatpants and a tank-top that barely contains her breasts. ...

This story was originally posted to Twitter on April 26, 2022. “Little witch, little witch~” She sits huddled inside her circle, her last little bastion against the world. A fortress wrought of old amber chips and gallium drips, a tiny pathetic thing standing firm in the face of what waits just outside. “Why won’t you come out to play~?” If she let herself look at it, if she let her eyes rest on that broken parody of a person for a just a moment— ...

She always felt like part of her was missing. An ache in her heart, an absence in the air around her—skin wrapped too tight around her bones, blood beating in time with a rhythm unlike her body. She always felt like something was wrong. Always, until she met them. The first time was nothing special. Their strong hands fumbling beneath her skirt, tearing her stockings; the hunger in their eyes tempered by furtive glances towards the office door. Her stammered protests, the blank animal fear curling around her mind as they fucked her— ...