Imaginations

With unrelenting sorrow, the man quietly laid down in his hole. His world seemed to unravel before him, and before long, he could not tell reality from fantasy. Imaginations ran wild, convincing him of that which likely didn't exist. Shovels above heaped dirt upon his body. The weight of it held him down as he…

Final Girl

Christina had been living all alone since the bombs dropped seventeen years ago. The apocalypse had come, and to her knowledge, she was the last human alive on earth. For this reason, her body paralyzed with fear when three men emerged from the edge of the forest. Christina was out in the open and nowhere…

Communion

With a sharp carving knife, the pastor sliced off a thick slab of the terrified man's calf as he screamed in agony. "Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, 'Take; eat; this…

The Goat

The discomfort she felt was not a result of his touch or even the overly tight metal restraints that cut into her flesh. It wasn't even that she had been tortured for days upon the slab, unable to move. These were all traumas, to be sure, but nothing was as unsettling as the goat that…

Perfect Breakfast

Sophie woke up slowly and with a smile as the gentle rays of the sun kissed her face through the window. A delicious scent wafted its way into her nostrils, and the gentle clangs of metal on metal awakened her more fully. Brian was making breakfast in the kitchen. Sophie hopped out of bed and…

Dog Food

The rain beat down in thick, heavy droplets sending small shocks of pain through the young man's broken and beaten body. The old man had left him for dead, but didn't count on the younger's resolved to push through. The young man dragged his own bloody body across the pavement towards the chain-link fence with…

Nourishment

She loved her baby with all her heart. She had taken every care that any mother would to raise a boy that would help people, that would save people. And when times turned dark, and all hope seemed lost, the now three-year-old boy was saving his mother from certain death. For three years, she had…

Failure

In the days that followed his demise, thousands of mourners arrived to pay their respects. He watched on from the other side as people sobbed over his coffin and then exit the church. He was supposed to be their liberator, and he had failed them. The specter watched those who left the church walk to…

Veal

"More," demanded the morbidly obese man as he finished off the last bit of gravy smothered meat. "But sir," his man-servant replied with a nervous twinge, "if we continue at our current pace, people will get suspicious. The police are already searching the streets night and day." "I said more!" The man-servant sighed and went…

Hungry for Music

As he sipped his fifth evening coffee, the musician was blissfully unaware of the danger that lurked behind him. As he had spent the day cleaning, throwing out old food and trash, he’d left the front door wide open to keep the air inside his home fresh as scrubbed and sanitized. His headphones blaring, he…