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Sharon’s note: Another 200 word challenge, where the subject was two people meeting who share a phobia. Warning: A real-life spider hostage situation that the author has witnessed.

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“Don’t let the–” 

I looked up from my phone to the sickly pale man pressed against the bathroom wall. The door clicked behind me and the guy groaned. That didn’t bode well. I gave him a weak smile. “Did I just trap us in here?”

He laughed, high and nervous. “That depends, are you afraid of spiders?”

. . . I spun around and yelped. My back hit the wall before I’d even realized I’d moved. The door handle was speckled with little white globes, half of which had split, spewing forth an army of tiny black dots. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of baby spiders.

I stayed frozen for a solid ten seconds before turning to my fellow spider hostage and holding out my hand. “My name’s John. What’s yours?”

He took it hesitantly. “Lance.”

“Well, Lance, here’s the plan. We’re going to stay here, as far from those little bastards as we can. When someone opens the door, we’re going to pretend like we were just in here talking. I’ll take the chance and see if I can stop it from closing, but I’m going to need you to follow close. Don’t worry buddy, I’m going to get us out of this.”

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Sharon’s note: One of two 200 word challenges I did. It’s cool to do little snipets of a story like this. Warning: Sad implications.

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The others search for canned and dried goods. I stay near the front of the abandoned grocery store, rifle at the ready. Dried leaves and grit crunch under my taped-together boots. We haven’t seen anyone in days, and it’s unlikely we’ll be bothered. Still, we haven’t lived this long by being careless.

There’s a corkboard near the broken sliding door. Most of the papers still pinned to it are unreadable. The faded poster of a stage play at the local theater advertises free drinks to people who bring something for the canned food drive.

“There’s nothing here. The place has been picked clean,” Gunner says before another fit of phlegmy coughs rip through him. I wince. No food probably means no medicine. We have to try anyway.“I saw a pharmacy on the way into town. We’ll see if there’s anything there, then head to the theater. Don’t worry, guys. I’ll find us food. We’ll make it through this.” I make myself believe it, because if I don’t, how can they?

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Sharon’s Note: This was a piece I wrote for a challenge. It’s a fun bit of fluff. Warning: Gratuitous cuteness.

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“No, thank you.” I tried not to bare teeth as I told yet another old man I didn’t want to play a game of dominoes. They weren’t even being creepy about it, so I couldn’t be rude. Apparently, if a teenage girl was alone at a picnic table at the zoo, plucking tiles out of a bag of dominoes, it was a signal that she was lonely and needed a friend. 

I mean, I was a little lonely, and didn’t have many friends, but that wasn’t why I was there. 

Yes, technically they had started out life as dominoes, but I’d painted runes over the dots. They were an integral part of my fortune-telling kit. They sold actual runestones, but those were expensive, and I got the whole bag for a quarter at a garage sale. Besides, I used my own symbols.

The Dragon. The Blade. The Rabbit. The Dog. I didn’t know what they meant, but it was trouble. Some kind of disaster coming, and what that could entail when there were predators around made me nervous.  

I placed down two more runes. The Hammer, and that stupid Baby tile that came out horrible, and I needed to repaint. It also wasn’t necessary. The distant sound of shouting kids from a school trip had already told me what was at stake. 

“Where? I need to know where,” I muttered as I fished in the bag one more time. The Frog. The reptile house? It was my best bet. I scooped all the dominoes back into their bag and took off. Brightly painted signs pointed to the cinderblock of a building where all the lizards lived. 

“Damn it, I wanted to see the snakes.” A ten-ish year old boy was kicking at the glass doors. He had a couple of other boys with him, and they radiated grumpiness and boredom. 

A sign on the door said in cartoonish letters: CLOSED FOR REMODELING. Spec-freaking-tacular. Someone was going to let out an alligator or something while trying to build it a new swimming pool.

“Hey, stop that. Shoo.” I waved my hands at them, and the one who had been kicking the door sneered at me. 

“You don’t get to tell us what to do.” He grinned back at his friends, who laughed like he had said something hilarious.

And that was a prime example of why I didn’t want kids. “Leave now, or I’ll tell your teachers, not only did I catch you vandalizing zoo property, you were also torturing small animals. I’d bet they’d believe it.”

The last bit was just extra to get them out of the way. I wasn’t actually going to do it. Panic flashed across the kid’s face before he turned tail and ran. After exchanging confused glances, his friends followed. I must have accidentally touched a nerve. That was worrying.

Whatever. I had more important things to deal with. Like getting into the stupid lizard house. Where there was probably a rogue alligator or something . . . What was I doing with my life?

A crash inside the building made me jump. Screams. I kicked the door, with absolutely no plan what to do if I got in. More screams, and the roof exploded. Rubble showered down, and I cowered against the wall. Bits of cement rained around me, one clipping my arm with bruising force. 

A resounding crack echoed through the air.The world faded away while my brain refused to understand what it saw. Something flying, spewing fire. A dragon. An actual dragon. What the hell? Since when were my runes that freaking literal?

It landed on the ground with a heart-stuttering thud. It wasn’t huge, about as tall as an Irish wolfhound. That was enough for something with claws on the tip of its wings the size of steak knives and a head like a squashed-nose crocodile. It opened its mouth, revealing teeth built for tearing. And it wailed. It cried like a lost baby. 

The landing had hurt it. When it hit the pavement, one of its bat-like wings had crumpled. 

It took one gaze at me and hobbled over, cooing and growling, almost like speech. I straightened up, ready to run, but it wrapped its uninjured wing around my leg and keened. What. The Actual. Hell.

“We’re going to have to shoot her. Quick! Someone contain the witnesses.” The voice came from inside the ruined reptile house. And that was my cue to leave, but there was still the matter of the dragon clinging to me like a frightened toddler. 

The Baby. The Dog. 

Knowing what I had to do didn’t mean I had to like it. Fine. I didn’t care for kids, but this was an innocent creature asking for my help, and I did love dogs.

“Hey, girl? You want to come home with me?” I asked in my sweetest voice. She cooed in response, staring at me with dewy, golden eyes. And just like that, I was ready to die for her. “Okay, sweetie. Follow me, and everything will be alright.”

I started to walk, and the dragon let me go. She followed after me, limping along with its broken wing  curled up by her chest. Never mind what I was going to do with an injured mythological creature. I was an actual oracle. I’d figure it out.

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Sharon’s note: Hardship can make or break a family, but some relationships couldn’t be saved by a zombie apocalypse. Warning: This was intended of splatter punk.

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“Suck it up Jess. Now is not the time to run off again because you’re butt hurt. We’ve got other problems.” Penny leveled her shotgun at the corpse that was starting to twitch.

“Fuck.” Dad swore and stepped up beside her, and I join him. It was an unspoken rule of the family. When bad shit went down, personal shit could wait.

The worm thing started dragging the body back towards the water, making the water-logged flesh ripple and the legs pull up at a strange, broken angles. This was so not zombies.

“Fuck this,” Ray said. He pulled his .44 mag snub nose out of his pocket and fired. The worm this was severed in a spray of watery black goo and disappeared into water like slurped spaghetti. The burning smell of gunpowder overpowered the rot for just a moment, and then the only this I could concentrate of was the screeching of something very, very big.

Thirty yards out the water started to bubble, going from green to brown as stagnant smelling sludge kicked up from somewhere deep. Heads broke the surface, followed by bodies that rose above the water, suspended by long black things that I was certain now were tentacles. Around a dozen, bloated corpses in torn, rotting clothes hung in the air, dead eyes focused on us and bared teeth snapping.

“Grenades?” I asked, focused less on the meat puppets and more of the great black dome of blubbery flesh that just poked out of the water.

“Grenades,” Dad agreed, and fired at the first body that raced towards us.

The thunder of the shot followed me back to the truck. I hopped in the cab and grabbed the giant tackle box and started digging through it. Damn Uncle Ray. He’d just thrown everything in instead of packing it neatly. There was a dozen candy bars of top of all the crucial equipment. How the hell was anyone in the family alive with an idiot like him in tow? Finally, I found a pouch. A single pouch with one freaking grenade. 

“Fuuuck,” I moaned. If we made it out alive, I was going to kill my uncle. I took the pouch with me and ran back to my dad. “We only got one, so unless you’ve got some other artillery, we got to make this count.”

“Damn it, Ray!” My dad roared, and started to walk backwards while firing into the puffed up face of my highschool chemistry teachers. That was satisfying. Mr. Swan had been a creeper. “Everyone walk it back. We got to try to lure this thing out of the water. We got to see how big it actually is.”

“Dad, we got to call for backup!” Penny yelled as she unloaded a round between the legs of Hailey Peterson, huskier in death than I’d ever been in junior high when she’d made fun of me. The tentacle was severed by the shot and the body flopped to the ground, spasming under the dying control of the bit of monster left up its ass. The tattoo at the small of its naked back was on full display, showing she’d changed it from her highschool boyfriend’s name to a butterfly at some point.

“Do it,” I said, moving in front of her to take on the next puppet so she could retreat and send out the call. 

“Shit!” 

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Sharon’s note: The human condition is fatal. Blunt, unpleasant, but unfortunately true. It manifests differently in everyone, but everyone has it. There’s very little of it we can control, but how we choose to look at it is one of them. Maybe instead of blunt and unpleasant, it’s just a short and bittersweet interlude before moving on to something else. Or not. It’s up to you. Warning: Author is in kind of grumpy today.

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The man was huge. A brute. He had one of his gorilla arms locked around Grandpa’s fragil throat and a gun pointed at me. Twice he tossed his head in an attempt to get the sweat soaked, scraggly blond hair out of his panicked pale face. It stayed in his eyes and Grandpa kept whimpering and-

“Shut up! Shut the hell up or I will blow your brains out!” The brute brought the gun up to Grandpa’s temple and I lunged forward. The gun swung back to me and I froze. Damn it, I wasn’t close enough.

“Hey man, you don’t have to do this, okay?” I somehow managed to keep my voice calm even though my heart was trying to explode through my throat. “What do you want? Do you want money?”

“I want you both to shut the hell up!” The brute dropped Grandpa and took a step back. I didn’t have a chance to get closer before he had the gun pointed at Grandpa’s chest. There had to be something I could do, but my mind was blank.

“Just tell me what you want, man.” I held up my hands, trying my best to sound soothing.

“Okay. Okay.” The brute took a deep breath. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Do you have a car?”

I considered lying for a second, but maybe I could get him out of the house without any bloodshed. “Yeah. The keys are in the other room. Right on the coffee table. You can take them. I’ll stay here.”

“Shut up,” he screamed and jabbed the pistol forward and my stomach clenched. “You only do what I tell you to do, and don’t talk unless I ask you a question. I’m going to take this old guy with me-”

“No, you can’t,” I pleaded. “He’s got a lot of health problems-”

He fired a round into the floor. The sound tore through my ears and left a high pitched buzz behind. Grandpa threw himself out of bed and onto the brute’s arm. I raced forward and slammed a fist into the brute’s face. The gun went of two more times and even a pain radiated through my hand I hit again. 

Grandpa fell to the floor. The brute stumbled back, the back of his head cracking into the wall before he dropped bonelessly. I grabbed Grampa and dragged him away, adrenaline warring with relief when I saw there was no blood. 

The brute didn’t move. I put Grandpa back on the bed and found something to restrain the brute with. I called the police, but we were a long way from town. I dragged the unconscious brute into the living room and checked on Grandpa. He was back to staring at the TV, mouth moving silently. Back to normal. I left him there to go keep an eye on the man tied up in the other room.

My throat tightened and my stomach churned. For just a second I had seen the man my grandfather used to be. He’d grabbed the brute like he was trying to protect me. I’d hoped . . .

It didn’t matter. I loved Grandpa. It didn’t matter if he didn’t remember me all the time. He loved me when he did. That was why he threw himself at the brute. That is what I chose to believe.

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Sharon’s note: This was a story I started writing for a contest. I decided it didn’t really work, but I still liked it, so here it is in two parts. Warning: Not my best work, but I enjoyed it.

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I never liked Grandpa’s cabin. It was so much like the old man. Everything creaked and sagged. No matter how much you cleaned, it always smelled like shit and death. 

No. I shouldn’t think like that. I wouldn’t smell like a rose when I got to his age. Hell, if I got to his age. Ninety-six years old. Hell, it was hard to contemplate living that long.

“Hey Jimmy.” Tamera waved from the front porch as I lugged my things from the car. She had a small suitcase leaning against her leg and she was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. I’d never seen her out of scrubs. Her southern drawl was more pronounced than usual, and her foot tapped against the old boards. “You sure you got this? He’s been kinda fussy the last couple days. I could stay.”

“You were the one who requested the time off, remember?” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she groaned.

“Only because Mama said she’d disown me if I didn’t go to my sister’s wedding.” She shuddered. “I’d kill for an excuse not to go. Lissa’s gone full-on bridezilla and at some point during the weekend I’m going to end up strangling her.”

I hefted my bag. “Well, call me if you need bail.”

She laughed. “I’ll do that. Now, I’ve got all the important numbers-”

“And I’ve got the five pages of instructions you emailed me. Go. Drive safe.” I made a shooing motion. Tamera was a sweetheart and a natural caretaker, but she needed to relax. 

She shuffled off towards her car, and I went inside. The disgusting but familiar smell filled my nose. Someone had tried to cover it up, but you just couldn’t hide death with lemon cleaner.

I dropped my bags next to the couch. I’d sleep there for the weekend, since I didn’t want to invade Tamera’s room. Next, I looked in on Grandpa. I’d expected him to be asleep, but he was sitting up in bed, watching the small TV in the corner and moving his mouth like he was chewing. I never knew why he did that. He hadn’t had teeth in a decade. 

“Hey, Grandpa. How are you doing?” I didn’t expect a response, and I didn’t get one. He didn’t look away from the screen, and just kept chewing. I sat at the end of his bed and his eyes slowly drifted over to me. The chewing stopped, and he stared at me, his brow wrinkling slightly in concentration. I put a hand on the covers over his foot, and it felt more like a bundle of sticks than flesh. “Do you remember me?”

He didn’t answer. He only looked back at the TV. Yeah. That was about what I had expected. He didn’t recognize me. I didn’t know if it was comforting or sad that it no longer hurt. Honestly, I wasn’t sure there was anything left of the man I knew.

I wasn’t sure when I fell asleep on the couch, but I jolted awake to the sound of breaking glass. Someone was keening. Grandpa. Shit. I was on my feet and down the hall before I could think.

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Sharon’s note: Noping out of family is hard. How much do we owe them? How much of the problem between us is you? Not you you, a hypothetical or metaphorical you. You know what I mean. Actual you this time. Warning: Author is scatterbrained today.

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“Girls!” Dad barked, and we fell in like, just like always. We stared at him because if we looked at each other, we’d just start fighting again. He glared at us before turning back to his brother. “She’s right, though, Bubba. There’s hand sanitizer and gloves in the truck. Use them.”

“You ain’t the boss of me.” Uncle Ray ignored Dad and braced to pull the body up again. Weeds snapped as he pulled, grunting and sweating like an angry pig, until with a fart like squelch the body came free. 

“Whoa, full moon.” Penny put up a hand to shield her vision. 

Uncle Ray dropped the body face down, and the blubbery, bloated butt rippled as it hit the ground. It was naked from the back. Something had ripped the waders like they were tissue paper, and everything from neck to knees was exposed. More human bite marks peppered the back and buttocks and . . .

“There’s a critter in his shitter.” Ray whooped with laughter at the thick black worm thing that trailed out of the corpse’s rectum and into the water. 

“Shut up, Bubba.” Dad crouched by the head, holding a throw-away .38 revolver on the worm thing while he checked the face. “It’s Joe Summers. Shit. I just saw him last night. He was going to that party at the Peterson’s house.”

“That asshole that turned the Gator Shack into a fucking chinese food restaraunt?” Ray’s lip curled and he kicked the late Mr. Summers in the side. “That was a local treasure, asshole.”

“If you treasure food poisoning and burnt coffee,” Penny mumbled so no one but me heard her. “Plus the new place has really good eggrolls.”

As much as I hated to agree with my sister, I had to nod. Too bad it would probably close with the owner dead. Ray kicked the worm thing, and it thrashed. A flood of extra foul smelling brown water gushed from around it and all thoughts of food disappeared from my head, possibly forever. 

“What the hell is that thing?” I took a step back. Uncle Ray was reaching towards the the worm, and I shrieked. “Don’t touch it, you idiot!”

“What did you call me?” He stood up, fist balled. 

“An idiot, because only someone as stupid as you would touch something that was coming out of a zombie’s ass with your bare hands!” I pointed to the black, squirming thing that was starting to writhe harder. 

“Don’t you talk like that to me, you stuck up little bitch!” He stepped over the body and stomped towards me, mud squelching around his boots. “You think you’re hot shit, because you left town and joined one of the big shot ‘organizations’ that you have anything on me? I’ve been doing this job since before you were born!”

“And it’s a miracle you aren’t dead yet.” I sneered at him. “On second thought, go ahead and touch it. Maybe I’ll be able to tell what it is from they way it kills you.”

Ray would never hit a girl, but I could feel how bad he wanted to. His arms bulged with tense muscles and and his nostrils flared comically wide. Apparently, Dad could too, because he jumped between us. “That’s enough! Bubba, she’s right. Go put on some fucking gloves. Jess, don’t talk to your uncle that way.”

I paused for a long second, then nodded. “Okay. Fine. You know what? I came home because you asked me for help. Seems like you don’t need my expertise, so I’ll just go. I’ll leave Rosalee in the truck.”

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Sharon’s note: I wrote this for a challenge that asked me to create tension with no supernatural influence and no blood. It was not my thing at all but also was very inspiring. Always challenge yourself. It’s how you grow. Warning: Author flatters herself that this is kind of creepy.

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The waiting room of the free clinic was overcrowded and filthy. It reeked of warm bodies and unnamed fluids. Most of the seats were broken and dead bugs cluttered the corners. If the guy in the corner wasn’t dead, he wasn’t long from it. He hadn’t moved in hours.

I bounced my leg, an unintended tick from nerves and the unending pain. At this point I wasn’t sure if the idea of losing the arm was a nightmare or relief. It hadn’t worked in days. I just wanted to stop hurting.

“Priss Holt.” The speakers sputtered and hissed so bad I could barely understand my name.

I shot to my feet and pushed my way to the door like it was the promised land and I would not be denied. Burning pain arced through the entire left side of my body as a jerk in a stinking gray coat shoulder-checked me and laughed. I swallowed my scream, and almost choked on it. He’d done it on purpose, but I had no time to do anything about it. Had to get to the door before they gave away my spot.

The nurse next to the door sat behind a sheet of bulletproof glass. She wore black scrubs and a dead eyed expression of disgust. Without a word she buzzed me in and I pushed through the door. A sobbing woman who was visibly pregnant tried to follow me, but a huge, mussel-bound man in royal blue scrubs shoved her back and closed the door. The hallway was deafeningly quiet in comparison.

The doctor was waiting, foot tapping in impatience. Between the surgical cap pulled down to cover his ears and the mask, I could see little of his face. His eyes darted around the clipboard in his hand and narrowed at something he read there.

“You didn’t complete the form. Do you not have an emergency contact?” His voice was rough, like an old smoker’s.

I shook my head. The movement of the neck muscles caused a ripple of pain through my shoulder. “No. I’m new in town and. . . I’ve got. . .”

The doctor saved me from starting to cry by waving dismissively. “No emergency contact. All you had to say. Follow me.”

I had to hurry to catch up as he led me past the line of tiny exam rooms and into a dingy storage room filled with boxes. A single rickety gurney was sectioned off by hanging plastic and surrounded by harsh surgical lights.

“What are we doing back here?” I asked.

“Overflow. Sit.” He pointed at the gurney and I sat. For all the metal frame looked like it was about to collapse, it was surprisingly solid. “From the tests we ran last week it looks like you have a pinched nerve. Other than that you’re perfectly healthy. We’re going to have to hook up an IV with your medicine.”

On cue, a nurse rolled in a cart that squeaked like a bag of mice and had a pole with one of those drip bags ready and waiting. She gave me the most weary smile I’d seen since my mother died. They exchanged quiet words briefly before the doctor went back to the main part of the clinic while the nurse approached.

“Okay, sweetie. I’m going to need you to lie down.” As I obeyed she moved things around the cart and started cleaning the inside of my elbow. “There’s going to be a little pinch.”

I nodded, and turned my face to the wall. Needles got to me, and if I watched I’d freak out. “So, um, how long have you worked here?”

“Oh, forever.” There was the briefest pain, and then she was putting tape on my arm to keep everything in place. She stuck a syringe into the port in the line and I felt the cold liquid she pushed in spread through my veins. “Alright, I’m going to give you the first part of your medicine. It might make you feel a little strange, but that’s normal. In order for the other medicine to help you, we have to make sure you don’t move around so you get the full effect.”

My heart, already beating so hard from the pain in my shoulder, picked up the pace as she raised the syringe of clear, viscous liquid. Medicine? Since when did doctors and nurses just say medicine? “So, what is that?”

“Oh, I could give you the official name but it wouldn’t mean anything to you. Don’t ask too many questions, dear. It’s a gift horse, so don’t check its teeth.” She tittered nervously. I ducked my head and shut my mouth. I couldn’t afford to be turned away. She stuck the needle into the port, and a second later I tasted metal. Did that count as strange?

“So, um, who pays for this clinic, anyway?” Between my arm hurting and my nerves, a feeling of cold was starting to creep up my toes and fingers.

The nurse jumped. Had she told me her name? “What?”

I babbled out my apology, but the words seemed slow. Thick. “Sorry. Trying to make small talk. Thought maybe I could send a thank you letter. Or something.”

“Oh, sweetie. I think they’re getting thanks enough.” She laughed again, and this time it verged on hysterical. Was she crying? My head was fuzzy. This couldn’t be right. My arm didn’t hurt anymore, but I couldn’t move my legs. I tried to talk again, but my mouth only fell open and dribbled drool. The nurse leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. Look at it this way. Your organs are going to save some very rich people’s lives, and they’ll give us the money to help a lot of people. Isn’t that nice?”

I couldn’t even scream.

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Sharon’s note: I started writing this for a splatter punk anthology. I didn’t make the deadline, but I thought everyone here would appreciate it. Warning: Foul language and family drama.

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“Put that back. The .22 is fine for land bound zombies, but for these wet suckers you need a shotgun.” Dad tossed me Old Rosalee from the back of the truck and I bit my lip. Communication. The key is always communication. That’s what my shrink said, anyway. This was why I never came home.

“I’ve been hunting zombies for seven years, Dad. I don’t need pointers, or a gun that’s so old I’m afraid it’s going to explode if I use it.” There. That was almost civil. I tossed the shotgun back to him, and he caught it single handed. 

There was that look. The one that said I was a disappointment and I was stupid and . . . nope. I wasn’t getting sucked down that rabbit hole again. Dad had never said anything like that to me, and it was unfair to assume that he was thinking it every time he looked at me.

“Don’t be such a freaking Prima Donna, Jess.” Penny hopped out of the cab, resettling Bruce over her shoulder. My twin had named her pump action twelve gauge after a movie shark and decorated her sling with maritime themed stickers. It was hard to believe that she and I shared genetics. “Dad’s been doing this a lot longer than seven years, so if he says we need shotguns, we need shotguns. Besides, I checked Rosalee over this morning. She’s fine.”

“Girls, if you start shit I swear to god that I will make you wait in the car.” The old threat made us both wince. He tossed Rosalee back. “Jess, just take her. Grab whatever else you want, but I won’t feel safe unless you’re properly armed, alright?”

I rolled my eyes, but took the stupid gun. “Fine.”

“Hey! I got a floater over here.” Uncle Ray waved us over to the water’s edge.

Dad hopped down out of the truck. “What’ya got, Bubba? Is it just a body?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty torn up, too.” Ray struggled against a tangle of weeds as he tried to drag the body onto land. He slipped, nearly falling into the water, then let left it where it was, half in the muck with blank, bleached out eyes staring at the sky. One cheek had been ripped completely off, and as the body rocked, the eyeball fell out of its socket, gushing gray liquid as it dangled off the side of its face by a dull red tangle of nerves.

“Ugh, would you at least put some gloves on?” I wrinkled my nose as the stench of rotting corpse increased to stomach churning levels. Swamps were always putrid, full of stagnant water and decaying plants. Dead human always made it so much worse. 

Penny prodded the body with her boot. Before it had died, it had been a white male in its mid forties. It was swollen and gray, so it was hard to estimate weight. The head looked clean shaven, and other than recent damage, the hip-waders it wore looked brand new. A weekend fisherman, maybe? He looked familiar under the rot. Something had been taking bites out of it, but it hadn’t been a normal critter. Human teeth made very distinctive marks. The eyeball lost the fight and fell from the head into the swamp with a thick plop. 

Bile rushed up my throat and I turned away, hand covering my mouth. Maybe if I kept it on there tight enough, I wouldn’t throw up. Sometimes the smallest things got to you. After a few seconds I swallowed and said, “And you wonder why I don’t eat breakfast anymore.”

“Shut up, pussy.” Penny hit me with her shoulder as she walked past. 

“Fuck you.” I flipped her off. Hey, renewed childhood rage was good for nausea. Good to know.

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Sharon’s note: So here’s the end of the story. I miss the characters already and am planning for the book. I hope you you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. May the fray well become you. Warning: Author is planning more of these violent shenanigans.

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I opened my eyes with a sputter. Icy cold water dripped from my nose, chin and hair. Another of whatever hit me flew towards my face, and I reached out to catch it. It exploded in my hand, splashing me again. A water balloon?

“Are you back with us, Roxy?” Alex called out from around the van. He’d learned that approaching directly while I was in one of my episodes could result in an accidental stabbing that I would deeply regret later. I was even holding the hunting knife, so it would have been a relatively mundane stabbing. Something he would survive, but not fun for anyone.

“Yeah. I am depressingly sane at the moment.” And wet. Some of it was water, but most of it was blood. The bodies of werewolves were scattered everywhere. One of them was halfway to the van, and was missing the top part of his head. I couldn’t remember clearly, but I didn’t think I did that. Must have been Paloma. She liked really big bullets. I held up the remains of the balloon. “Good idea. These snapped me right out of it.”

“Well, I figured they would, since you have a lot in common with a house cat.” He motioned me forward. “Come on. Brian and his sister are having a heart-to-heart in the back, so you’re sitting up front with me.”

“Where’s Paloma going to sit?” I leaped over the mangled body of the wannabe on the way back to the van. How had I even gotten his neck at that angle?

“She’s back there too, holding tissues.”

“Better her than me.” I hopped into the passenger side and immediately fussed with the stereo. Brian was deep in conversation with Sarah. He didn’t even yell at me for getting blood on his seat. I got some Jethro Tull on. I kept it low, so I didn’t disturb anyone, and began moving my fingers along with the flute part. Alex pulled us away from the scene. Knowing him, he’d already called someone to deal with the bodies.

I asked to be let out before we got to town. The constant sobbing and arguing from the back seat was beginning to annoy me, and I had errands to run. I met them at Brian’s parents’ house after cleaning up. Alex was sitting on the front steps. He’d known I was coming and was waiting for me. Sometimes it concerned me how well he knew me. It straight up worried me how well he understood me.

“You look tired,” he said. There were people talking and moving around inside the house, but I couldn’t understand them.

I plopped down next to him. “It’s been a full night. Don’t you need to go find some cover soon.”

He nodded. “I wanted to talk to you first. Even with her boyfriend gone, I’m concerned that the rest of the pack will come after her. She’s going to stay here for right now, but they can’t stand up to a proper assault.”

I smirked and stretched. “I wouldn’t worry about them. She might try to join another group, but it won’t be that one.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Was that what you were off doing? Are they all dead?”

“No.” I rolled my eyes. “I only took out enough that they agreed she wasn’t welcome back.”

“Oh, my girl. They fray does well become you.” He patted my shoulder. “That Bedlam boy must be missing you terribly.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “He’ll just have to keep missing me. I’m never going back.”

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Maudlin Girl Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6 Pt 7 Pt 8

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