The Inspiration:
A story:
“Sweet Jesus, Vic, now we’re lost!”
“Shutup, Stacy.”
“Shortcut, my ass.”
“Shut-the-fuck-up.”
They glared at each other over the hood of the car.
“Where the hell is everyone?”
Even the gathering dusk couldn’t hide the griminess of the town.
Vic noticed her first. She stood across the street, as tattered and dirty as her surroundings, cradling a doll. “Hey! Little girl!”
He crossed to her and kneeled, “Can you tell us …?”
She smiled and leaned in, as if to whisper in Vic’s ear.
And Stacy’s screams echoed down the street as the blood appeared and the little girl fed.
***************************************
Now, your turn.
[…] Via Darleen […]
[…] Fiction picked up from Smitty at The Other McCain and Darleen at protein wisdom. Read their stories, one of which delves into current events and the other which will take you down […]
[…] Fiction picked up from Smitty at The Other McCain and Darleen at protein wisdom. Read their stories, one of which delves into current events and the other which will take you down […]
“All fulled up,” said the little girl, swallowing the last little bit of Vic’s face.
Stacy was visibly unhappy. “God you’re a bitch,” said Stacy. “This is why unlike me you’re not on tv. You’re too stupid and you eat people and you don’t have a degree and sweetie you need dental work and ya smell bad.”
The little girl started crying, but Stacy wasn’t having it.
“Oh are you gonna cry now? Oh boo hoo hoo I’m a trashy lil people eater and nobody likes me. Get it together honey trash is as trash does and you. are. trash.”
Daddy went away to fight in a big war somewhere and Mommy said, “Don’t cry, Honey” though I did anyway and I saw her crying later when she didn’t know Dolly and I were watching her.
A while back she told me Daddy went to heaven on account of he was a hero and she told me, “Don’t cry, Honey.” but she was crying herself when she said it.
This morning, Doctor Peters said Mommy went to heaven to see Daddy because she had the flu and now I’m going to live with Aunt Margaret in Kansas.
Don’t cry, Dolly.
She had brought the money. Raggedy girl like that, I didn’t think she’d pay.
It was just like one of them dime novels. Sneak into the room at night nab the doll and leave a note.
Andy told me it would work; I hadn’t believed him. It was his idea really, “done it lots,” he’d said. “They pay every time. They sure love them dolls.”
But where had Andy gone now?
The girl raised her eyes with a smug half smile.
I heard gravel crunch and the snick of a shell pumped into a shotgun.
“That’s him Daddy,” she said.
“Because honey”.
“But why Moma?” , the girl persists tentatively, punctuated by the soft cough everyone seems to have lately.
“This is Grampas house honey, but you shouldn’t ask him” sighed moma, trying to blink the ever present dust from her eyes.
“Come inside now, you shouldn’t be out like this”
Honey doesn’t move, not even took up. “But why moma?”
Moma’s normally haggard eyes briefly twinkled, and pulling the girl close they hurried for the house’s purified air.
“Gramps always said, bad enough to be called an Okie in Califonia, he’d be damned before he’d be a Cali somewhere else!”
Ah shucks, I forgot to do an edit. Read:
“He’d be damned before he’d be called “Calie” somewhere else!”
“You see this? This is a picture of me when I was a little girl growing up in a tar paper shack, just a waif on the mean streets of Chicago. But I come far, because my Mama had a dream for her little girl. She dreamed I could climb the highest, mountain just like the man she named me for.”
Oh, some folks round here just call him The Lord God bird after what gawkers like y’all say when they see him. Other’s just say he’s King of the Woodpeckers. But y’all must be new to these parts though, huh, on account of yer so ignerant and dressed so fine. So d’ya really wanna see him? Means a long walk into the cypress dome over yonder, if’n ya do. Sure, I can guid’ja. But I gotta let momma know first before we go, since she hollers som’fin awful when I just wander off — and then a paddlin’s comin’. Hey, momma!
yes yes yes that’s not a “dolly” that’s a maybe-alive bird
i didn’t really look before
thank you Mr. sdferr for making this picture even creepier
TaiChiWawa won, by the way.