All Tongue
By Josh Paquin
Cracked stone steps carved a path through an overgrowth of weeds. Mold-spotted headstones could be seen everywhere on the hill and throughout the plateau above. Friday evening’s blood red sun dipped below the horizon, colouring the cemetery pink.
Mark, a single child, teen, scaled the steps and after achieved the plateau above, found the cemetery as quiet as ever, except for the presence of a large lady, draped in black, hunched over a tombstone in the distance.
He laid hands on weather beaten gravestones as he travelled his usual route, its marble cold to touch, was comforting to him.
20 steps until his arrival at the grave marker covered in post-it notes. Could see the swathes of small squares rustling in the breeze. He once counted at least three layers of them. A keen eye could tell they were colour coated by month - the only colourful things in the drab environs.
...Save for a single yellow flower atop the grave marker. no sooner spotted did he swat it away.
The town had recently been overtaken by the strange species of flower. Likewise, the place had been site of unexplained and sinister events of late. A strange coincidence.
Beautiful though the blossom was, his father’s tombstone was no place for it.
“How are you, old man? “ Mark said as he sat down in his usual spot. So frequently visited that no weed grew there. The ground felt familiarly cold underneath him.
He fished out his left pocket the latest post-it note, this one read “loser”. Mark added it amongst the others, as varied as: “Why’d you leave us” “quitter” “no one misses you” and “rot”
The sound of silence intensified, pink clouds became darker and darker until only iron coloured skies held back the darkness.
“Mom’s a wreck — what’s new” Mark continued, “first time making at least 80% on my Geometry test - she didn’t even notice”
The fragrance of lavender permeated the scene, no doubt left by visitors of a well attended site to the east.
“Took me forever” he said, “coulda taught me math, genius. Not like I could pick it up by watching you”
“Taught me how to tie a tie though” he said, fished out a noose from his right pocket. Scanned it a moment and contemplated its feel around his neck. Imagined what his dad must’ve thought to himself in a similar moment.
Mark pocketed the item and scoffed, “Good talk” he said.
Though he could feel his jaw tight and his neck muscles ache, Mark managed a smile, “Let’s chat again next week”
On his way out, stepped on the flower that’d been brushed off earlier, the waxy petals looked like insects wings. A closer look revealed that they were everywhere in the cemetery, including, sitting atop the head of the large woman in black, who was still bent over at the foot of a gravestone.
Mark cleared his throat at distance of the lady, hoping to get her attention - no success. So started down a thin path lined with tall grass towards her.
The woman’s black robe was draped over her body, accenting every knuckle of spinal cord, and every ridge of bone. Her size was imposing at this proximity.
“Excuse me, miss” he said,
The woman was making a sound akin to a throaty sob, but there was something off about it. She was clearly within ear shot, and aught to have heard him.
Muscles in Mark’s neck shot a pang of pain into his consciousness, reminding him of his tension,
“It’s just that, I see your fascination with flowers and was wondering if you’d have placed the flower on my father’s grave. And if so, could you Kindly not do it again”
“Your father?” She said, or rather tried to say, it was as if she spoke with a mouth full of tongue.
The woman turned slowly, The first notable feature of her gaunt visage were a set of enormous eyes, the blacks of her pupils large like a tea cup. Her skin, white, like porcelain, with cheeks hit with garish pink blush. Her top teeth were hidden behind plump lips and her bottom jaw absent altogether. in it’s place , a large red raw tongue that dropped down her chest, covering her naked body. Long black hair, earlier mistaken for a robe, covered what the tongue didn’t.
Mark was convinced in an instant that he’d encountered something supernatural. A demon.
She withdrew her arms from the hole at the foot of the gravestone. They were long, thin appendages, at the end of each were fingers with extra digits and rigid nails - more claw than anything.
Body parts dropped from her hands, half eaten, and artfully sliced up - signs she liked to play with her food before devouring it.
Mark turned to leave but hadn’t anticipated her enormous reach. She gripped him hard by the shoulders, the fingers curled against his back, talons cut through his skin like butter as she pulled him near.
A third hand appeared from her back, previously obscured by raven black hair. Reached out, cupped his head, digits poised to rip it clean off.
“Tasty, tasty” she said,
Under the pressure of her hands, he imagined his head popping off like the cork on New Year’s champagne. Blood dripping out his neck, down her tongue and onto the cemetery ground where she’s lap it up in quiet solitude.
“If you want to eat something - eat my dad” Mark blurted out, “His body, for my life.” He continued as if he was proposing a pact with the devil. “At least my dad would be good for something” he thought.
Nothing about the demon’s behaviour suggested complex thinking outside answering the insatiable call to devour. Still, the demon paused, and for a moment, Mark thought she looked intrigued.
At the crag of being consumed, he waited as her eyes darter over to his father’s grave marker. Desperate, he added,
“EAT. HIM. ALL. EAT everything that is my father”
Though he thought it impossible for her eyes to dilate further, they did. Now, any white was eclipsed by black - a beast in the throes of ecstasy.
So, Mark was dropped like a tuna sandwich at recess, and walked, back riddled with deep gashes, down the stone path to the exit. The slurping sounds echoed in the night sky as he thought about his father - and for the first time, felt ashamed.
“Hey kid” Mark’s mom, Glady, called to him from the kitchen table upon his return home to their second story apartment. It was all she could muster from the mouth of misery - They’d both been there a while - cept dad was all she could hold on to since he passed. There she was, yet again, pouring through old photos, piled high over stacks of dirty dishes.
Mark paused a moment and contemplated telling her what he’d seen - but was too frightened for her reaction - whether she’d wondered if he was going crazy or didn’t care.
He kissed his mother’s forehead, “I’ll make supper soon, k” he said, and went to the guest room where his father had slept for the last 6 months of his life.
Beyond a wall of old math text books, under the bed, was a cardboard box full of his dad’s personal effects - the messed up shit. Where Mark returned the noose. Where dark journal entries hid. A lighter engraved “dad” shone, and a primed and ready Molotov cocktail rested - ready to burn everything down.
Mom didn’t know - thank god - but while Mark laid in bed, he thought “ What the hell was with all the morose bullshit? Was it really so terrible having a wife and kid who loved you? Why couldn’t that asshole say he was unhappy”
That’s when the intensity of the day took hold, and Mark began to cry. No sooner did the tears leave his tear ducts did he wipe them away… because he didn’t want anyone to see.
That night, a heavy and perceptible gloom woke him from sleep. unsure of the extent to which the dream world still held sway, he headed to the window, unlatched and opened it.
“Mark, Mark, Mark” came a voice, loud and frantic, “She’s coming, she’s coming”
The boy followed the voice through the fog that had poured into the streets from the north, where the cemetery was. He saw the shadow of a figure crawling.
“Tasty, tasty” it said
The demon’s long fingers wriggled in the air, bony elbows hammered against the pavement, wrenching itself forward,
“Tasty , tasty” he heard again.
Could catch the sound of long nails against the wall that skirted the house next door, the brick cracking under the pressure.
“Tasty tasty”
That’s when he woke up, cheerful sunlight broke through dad’s curtain. Mark was uncertain if he dreamt it - dreamt, perhaps, the whole encounter at the cemetery the evening before.
He acquiesced to live his life with the uncertainty
Except, THAT was when the termites came.
It started at first, with Glady, whom, starting that morning, could no longer be found at the table, scrounging through old photos. Instead, she would spend large amounts of time in her room staring at the wall.
Initially, Mark thought it an improvement, but came to find out that mom thought she could hear “chewing” beyond the sheet rock.
Mark banished the thought of the demon from his mind, and quick reasoned that a monster her size would have difficulty fitting through a space 4 inch wide - the space between inside wall and exterior.
All the same, thankfully mom wasn’t the only one who shared the concern for termites. In the mailroom on his way home, a few days later, he overheard tenants speak about the strange sound inside the walls. “They’ll eat the foundation, cave the roof in over our heads” said one, “I hear they’ll raise the rent again this year” said another.
A week passed before a notice was sent to all tenants that a “termite guy” would be by to “assess the situation” and would begin their inspection in the laundry room.
“ Mom” he thought to himself, “It’s been one thing after another with us. One of us has got to be brave for the other. And I promise, when I get home, I’m going to lay out how I’ve been feeling - so cold, distant, and alone”
It had been building for a while, this sense that something was wrong, and it was starting to make Mark physically ill. That’s why he set out to the cemetery that evening, to see if he could find evidence, that what he’d seen the other day - unimaginable as it was - had really happened.
The cemetery was bathed in a pink sunset, a mirror image of how it’d been. Except this day, the wind gusts blew harder, and there seemed an unpleasant smell in the air - reminding him faintly of decay.
Where there’d been unvisited gravestones before, trails once overgrown with weeds, now, were beaten down, and was the first unsettling sign.
He continued up the stone stairs to the plateau and reached out for the marble gravestones along his way, this time, the sharp cold made him feel empty. Mark looked over at the place where he’d encountered the demon - no one there - except a dark hole where she’d fished out the remains of a buried corpse - and now, dawned on Mark, that that forgotten person was gone forever.
That’s when he noticed that some of his post-it notes had flown away in the wind and were caught in the branches of a small shrub. Mark picked them up, feeling embarrassed at the thought that someone could see them. This purple post-it - was amongst the first he left. This one read, “Miss you, always” He could remember the early days when the feelings were intense - now was mostly numb.
Still, he sprinted to his dad’s grave marker and when he saw it…
...His heart sank. In place of the cold ground by which he’d sat every Friday, there was a giant hole. Without meaning to, he peered in and began to search the darkness. There, claw marks on rock. There, saliva, thick and wet, like a pool of gelatin. And there, the edge of a coffin, torn open - emptiness beyond. Mark’s words echoed in his mind
“EAT. HIM. ALL. EAT everything that is my father”
“Everything?” He thought “What part of my life isn’t a part of him?”
Left shaken, Mark returned home, wondering if he’d unwittingly promised his mom to the demon, the apartment, himself.
He saw the termite guy’s van in the driveway. The back doors were open. Guy must be inside already. Finding him was a sure sign that everything was still normal at the apartment, that somehow “the demon hadn’t snuck into the walls, right?”
Mark, went into the apartment and accessed the laundry room. There was a large hole in the wall - “she’s here” his first though. The dryer was spinning hard as if it had a load of bricks — or a load “Termite guy”
Clank, clank, clank
“Had no one heard this obscenely loud clanking?”
Clank clank clank
It was hard to hear anything else
Clank clank clank
Mark reached for the dryer door, knowing that opening it would stop the cycle.
Reached for the lip he knew he could find purchase to pull the door open.
Reached for it and pulled.
…Winter jackets fell out.
He breathed a sigh of relief, engulfed by a buzzing silence that flooded the room by the vacuum formed in the absence of that infernal clanking
Basking in the comfort of the innocent electric sound, he was disarmed when in came another - drip drip drip
He followed the sound to the hole in the wall, and there saw the dripping blood, the tendrils of muscle, easily missed amidst the splintered drywall.
“Tasty tasty” came the voice, all tongue.
Mark, against his better judgement looked into the hole. Looked up.
He saw her, her form, inconsistent and clumpy, like jam - an eye near her breast, the other by a finger. deposits of ash coloured fat rolled over each other as she travelled upwards, the exposed wall studs holding the place together were compromised, riddled with cuts, bite marks and spit.
Mark bolted upstairs, abandoned his key chain in the lock and halfway through the apartment door began shouting,
“Mom! We’re leaving! NOW!”
Mom was at the kitchen table, grabbing the pictures of dad.
Grabbing at the table , grabbing at anything..
fiercely resisting being pulled into the mouth of the demon.
Yes. She was already there.
Her large tongue was wrapped around mom’s stomach, tight, and tightening, like a boa constrictor. Glady’s legs were already in its mouth, bent backwards, broken.
“Mom” Mark shouted, and came to her aid,
But the demon’s free hand - the one from behind her back - swatted him away.
Mark, quick went to the cutlery drawer, rifled through, brandished a butcher knife and screamed,
“Don’t take her — don’t take her too”
When he turned. Mom was already gone. devoured.
“Tasty, tasty”
The demon said, barely able to keep the blood down. Its tongue and hands now free. Its eyes wide - black pools of pure malice - now fixed upon him.
“You bastard” he cried and charged forward. Could feel her sharp claws dig into his back as she took hold, and pulled him closer.
He drove the knife into her tongue, affixing her to the table. The demon barely flinched. But then… the apartment shifted.
“Was it the foundation? How badly had she damaged it?” he thought - no time to think. Mark lost his footing in the shift, slid out of her hands and stumbled into the guest room, hitting his head on the bed. She followed after but the knife impeded her movement. Desperately, she tried to pull it out, frothing at the mouth at the thought of her next meal. But her long digits had difficulty navigating the weapon.
Mark contemplated jumping from the 2 story window… but then… how much longer before she came for him.
Instead reached under the guest bed and pulled his father’s things out - The Molotov cocktail sloshed as he did.
Grabbing it and the lighter, he returned to his feet, entered the kitchen, where he saw the demon finally pulling out the blade.
“You can’t have me” Mark said , exiting the apartment, trembling hands found the left-behind key chain, and locked the door before hearing a slam on the other side. He created distance as her fingers reached under the door grabbed hold and ripped the bottom out. The demon becoming like mush once more, pulled herself through the small opening, tongue curled around itself, eyes still fixed on him
“Tasty tasty” she said.
Mark lit dad’s Molotov cocktail as she reconstituted,
“Taste this, bitch” he shouted, throwing it into her.
The glass shattered, alcohol spread first, into her eyes, all over her tongue, into every crevice, before she exploded into a ball of fire. .
The apartment shifted once more
Mark left the burning ball behind him, the demon’s large arms flailed around, setting fire to everything.
No sooner did he get out, did the place come down all around in a pile of rubble.
Surviving tenants looked on as black smoke billowed from between the cracks in the remains.
Overcome by exhaustion and profound grief, Mark sank to his knees and blacked out.
A week later - came to in the hospital - No family at his bedside.
He read reports of suspected arson in the town paper - apartment collapse, 7 missing - no bodies recovered. But that wasn’t even the worst news - The strange flower - the havoc that’d spread in a week…
“Might have this town” he thought, “might have our way of life”
“But you can’t have me”
By Josh Paquin
Cracked stone steps carved a path through an overgrowth of weeds. Mold-spotted headstones could be seen everywhere on the hill and throughout the plateau above. Friday evening’s blood red sun dipped below the horizon, colouring the cemetery pink.
Mark, a single child, teen, scaled the steps and after achieved the plateau above, found the cemetery as quiet as ever, except for the presence of a large lady, draped in black, hunched over a tombstone in the distance.
He laid hands on weather beaten gravestones as he travelled his usual route, its marble cold to touch, was comforting to him.
20 steps until his arrival at the grave marker covered in post-it notes. Could see the swathes of small squares rustling in the breeze. He once counted at least three layers of them. A keen eye could tell they were colour coated by month - the only colourful things in the drab environs.
...Save for a single yellow flower atop the grave marker. no sooner spotted did he swat it away.
The town had recently been overtaken by the strange species of flower. Likewise, the place had been site of unexplained and sinister events of late. A strange coincidence.
Beautiful though the blossom was, his father’s tombstone was no place for it.
“How are you, old man? “ Mark said as he sat down in his usual spot. So frequently visited that no weed grew there. The ground felt familiarly cold underneath him.
He fished out his left pocket the latest post-it note, this one read “loser”. Mark added it amongst the others, as varied as: “Why’d you leave us” “quitter” “no one misses you” and “rot”
The sound of silence intensified, pink clouds became darker and darker until only iron coloured skies held back the darkness.
“Mom’s a wreck — what’s new” Mark continued, “first time making at least 80% on my Geometry test - she didn’t even notice”
The fragrance of lavender permeated the scene, no doubt left by visitors of a well attended site to the east.
“Took me forever” he said, “coulda taught me math, genius. Not like I could pick it up by watching you”
“Taught me how to tie a tie though” he said, fished out a noose from his right pocket. Scanned it a moment and contemplated its feel around his neck. Imagined what his dad must’ve thought to himself in a similar moment.
Mark pocketed the item and scoffed, “Good talk” he said.
Though he could feel his jaw tight and his neck muscles ache, Mark managed a smile, “Let’s chat again next week”
On his way out, stepped on the flower that’d been brushed off earlier, the waxy petals looked like insects wings. A closer look revealed that they were everywhere in the cemetery, including, sitting atop the head of the large woman in black, who was still bent over at the foot of a gravestone.
Mark cleared his throat at distance of the lady, hoping to get her attention - no success. So started down a thin path lined with tall grass towards her.
The woman’s black robe was draped over her body, accenting every knuckle of spinal cord, and every ridge of bone. Her size was imposing at this proximity.
“Excuse me, miss” he said,
The woman was making a sound akin to a throaty sob, but there was something off about it. She was clearly within ear shot, and aught to have heard him.
Muscles in Mark’s neck shot a pang of pain into his consciousness, reminding him of his tension,
“It’s just that, I see your fascination with flowers and was wondering if you’d have placed the flower on my father’s grave. And if so, could you Kindly not do it again”
“Your father?” She said, or rather tried to say, it was as if she spoke with a mouth full of tongue.
The woman turned slowly, The first notable feature of her gaunt visage were a set of enormous eyes, the blacks of her pupils large like a tea cup. Her skin, white, like porcelain, with cheeks hit with garish pink blush. Her top teeth were hidden behind plump lips and her bottom jaw absent altogether. in it’s place , a large red raw tongue that dropped down her chest, covering her naked body. Long black hair, earlier mistaken for a robe, covered what the tongue didn’t.
Mark was convinced in an instant that he’d encountered something supernatural. A demon.
She withdrew her arms from the hole at the foot of the gravestone. They were long, thin appendages, at the end of each were fingers with extra digits and rigid nails - more claw than anything.
Body parts dropped from her hands, half eaten, and artfully sliced up - signs she liked to play with her food before devouring it.
Mark turned to leave but hadn’t anticipated her enormous reach. She gripped him hard by the shoulders, the fingers curled against his back, talons cut through his skin like butter as she pulled him near.
A third hand appeared from her back, previously obscured by raven black hair. Reached out, cupped his head, digits poised to rip it clean off.
“Tasty, tasty” she said,
Under the pressure of her hands, he imagined his head popping off like the cork on New Year’s champagne. Blood dripping out his neck, down her tongue and onto the cemetery ground where she’s lap it up in quiet solitude.
“If you want to eat something - eat my dad” Mark blurted out, “His body, for my life.” He continued as if he was proposing a pact with the devil. “At least my dad would be good for something” he thought.
Nothing about the demon’s behaviour suggested complex thinking outside answering the insatiable call to devour. Still, the demon paused, and for a moment, Mark thought she looked intrigued.
At the crag of being consumed, he waited as her eyes darter over to his father’s grave marker. Desperate, he added,
“EAT. HIM. ALL. EAT everything that is my father”
Though he thought it impossible for her eyes to dilate further, they did. Now, any white was eclipsed by black - a beast in the throes of ecstasy.
So, Mark was dropped like a tuna sandwich at recess, and walked, back riddled with deep gashes, down the stone path to the exit. The slurping sounds echoed in the night sky as he thought about his father - and for the first time, felt ashamed.
“Hey kid” Mark’s mom, Glady, called to him from the kitchen table upon his return home to their second story apartment. It was all she could muster from the mouth of misery - They’d both been there a while - cept dad was all she could hold on to since he passed. There she was, yet again, pouring through old photos, piled high over stacks of dirty dishes.
Mark paused a moment and contemplated telling her what he’d seen - but was too frightened for her reaction - whether she’d wondered if he was going crazy or didn’t care.
He kissed his mother’s forehead, “I’ll make supper soon, k” he said, and went to the guest room where his father had slept for the last 6 months of his life.
Beyond a wall of old math text books, under the bed, was a cardboard box full of his dad’s personal effects - the messed up shit. Where Mark returned the noose. Where dark journal entries hid. A lighter engraved “dad” shone, and a primed and ready Molotov cocktail rested - ready to burn everything down.
Mom didn’t know - thank god - but while Mark laid in bed, he thought “ What the hell was with all the morose bullshit? Was it really so terrible having a wife and kid who loved you? Why couldn’t that asshole say he was unhappy”
That’s when the intensity of the day took hold, and Mark began to cry. No sooner did the tears leave his tear ducts did he wipe them away… because he didn’t want anyone to see.
That night, a heavy and perceptible gloom woke him from sleep. unsure of the extent to which the dream world still held sway, he headed to the window, unlatched and opened it.
“Mark, Mark, Mark” came a voice, loud and frantic, “She’s coming, she’s coming”
The boy followed the voice through the fog that had poured into the streets from the north, where the cemetery was. He saw the shadow of a figure crawling.
“Tasty, tasty” it said
The demon’s long fingers wriggled in the air, bony elbows hammered against the pavement, wrenching itself forward,
“Tasty , tasty” he heard again.
Could catch the sound of long nails against the wall that skirted the house next door, the brick cracking under the pressure.
“Tasty tasty”
That’s when he woke up, cheerful sunlight broke through dad’s curtain. Mark was uncertain if he dreamt it - dreamt, perhaps, the whole encounter at the cemetery the evening before.
He acquiesced to live his life with the uncertainty
Except, THAT was when the termites came.
It started at first, with Glady, whom, starting that morning, could no longer be found at the table, scrounging through old photos. Instead, she would spend large amounts of time in her room staring at the wall.
Initially, Mark thought it an improvement, but came to find out that mom thought she could hear “chewing” beyond the sheet rock.
Mark banished the thought of the demon from his mind, and quick reasoned that a monster her size would have difficulty fitting through a space 4 inch wide - the space between inside wall and exterior.
All the same, thankfully mom wasn’t the only one who shared the concern for termites. In the mailroom on his way home, a few days later, he overheard tenants speak about the strange sound inside the walls. “They’ll eat the foundation, cave the roof in over our heads” said one, “I hear they’ll raise the rent again this year” said another.
A week passed before a notice was sent to all tenants that a “termite guy” would be by to “assess the situation” and would begin their inspection in the laundry room.
“ Mom” he thought to himself, “It’s been one thing after another with us. One of us has got to be brave for the other. And I promise, when I get home, I’m going to lay out how I’ve been feeling - so cold, distant, and alone”
It had been building for a while, this sense that something was wrong, and it was starting to make Mark physically ill. That’s why he set out to the cemetery that evening, to see if he could find evidence, that what he’d seen the other day - unimaginable as it was - had really happened.
The cemetery was bathed in a pink sunset, a mirror image of how it’d been. Except this day, the wind gusts blew harder, and there seemed an unpleasant smell in the air - reminding him faintly of decay.
Where there’d been unvisited gravestones before, trails once overgrown with weeds, now, were beaten down, and was the first unsettling sign.
He continued up the stone stairs to the plateau and reached out for the marble gravestones along his way, this time, the sharp cold made him feel empty. Mark looked over at the place where he’d encountered the demon - no one there - except a dark hole where she’d fished out the remains of a buried corpse - and now, dawned on Mark, that that forgotten person was gone forever.
That’s when he noticed that some of his post-it notes had flown away in the wind and were caught in the branches of a small shrub. Mark picked them up, feeling embarrassed at the thought that someone could see them. This purple post-it - was amongst the first he left. This one read, “Miss you, always” He could remember the early days when the feelings were intense - now was mostly numb.
Still, he sprinted to his dad’s grave marker and when he saw it…
...His heart sank. In place of the cold ground by which he’d sat every Friday, there was a giant hole. Without meaning to, he peered in and began to search the darkness. There, claw marks on rock. There, saliva, thick and wet, like a pool of gelatin. And there, the edge of a coffin, torn open - emptiness beyond. Mark’s words echoed in his mind
“EAT. HIM. ALL. EAT everything that is my father”
“Everything?” He thought “What part of my life isn’t a part of him?”
Left shaken, Mark returned home, wondering if he’d unwittingly promised his mom to the demon, the apartment, himself.
He saw the termite guy’s van in the driveway. The back doors were open. Guy must be inside already. Finding him was a sure sign that everything was still normal at the apartment, that somehow “the demon hadn’t snuck into the walls, right?”
Mark, went into the apartment and accessed the laundry room. There was a large hole in the wall - “she’s here” his first though. The dryer was spinning hard as if it had a load of bricks — or a load “Termite guy”
Clank, clank, clank
“Had no one heard this obscenely loud clanking?”
Clank clank clank
It was hard to hear anything else
Clank clank clank
Mark reached for the dryer door, knowing that opening it would stop the cycle.
Reached for the lip he knew he could find purchase to pull the door open.
Reached for it and pulled.
…Winter jackets fell out.
He breathed a sigh of relief, engulfed by a buzzing silence that flooded the room by the vacuum formed in the absence of that infernal clanking
Basking in the comfort of the innocent electric sound, he was disarmed when in came another - drip drip drip
He followed the sound to the hole in the wall, and there saw the dripping blood, the tendrils of muscle, easily missed amidst the splintered drywall.
“Tasty tasty” came the voice, all tongue.
Mark, against his better judgement looked into the hole. Looked up.
He saw her, her form, inconsistent and clumpy, like jam - an eye near her breast, the other by a finger. deposits of ash coloured fat rolled over each other as she travelled upwards, the exposed wall studs holding the place together were compromised, riddled with cuts, bite marks and spit.
Mark bolted upstairs, abandoned his key chain in the lock and halfway through the apartment door began shouting,
“Mom! We’re leaving! NOW!”
Mom was at the kitchen table, grabbing the pictures of dad.
Grabbing at the table , grabbing at anything..
fiercely resisting being pulled into the mouth of the demon.
Yes. She was already there.
Her large tongue was wrapped around mom’s stomach, tight, and tightening, like a boa constrictor. Glady’s legs were already in its mouth, bent backwards, broken.
“Mom” Mark shouted, and came to her aid,
But the demon’s free hand - the one from behind her back - swatted him away.
Mark, quick went to the cutlery drawer, rifled through, brandished a butcher knife and screamed,
“Don’t take her — don’t take her too”
When he turned. Mom was already gone. devoured.
“Tasty, tasty”
The demon said, barely able to keep the blood down. Its tongue and hands now free. Its eyes wide - black pools of pure malice - now fixed upon him.
“You bastard” he cried and charged forward. Could feel her sharp claws dig into his back as she took hold, and pulled him closer.
He drove the knife into her tongue, affixing her to the table. The demon barely flinched. But then… the apartment shifted.
“Was it the foundation? How badly had she damaged it?” he thought - no time to think. Mark lost his footing in the shift, slid out of her hands and stumbled into the guest room, hitting his head on the bed. She followed after but the knife impeded her movement. Desperately, she tried to pull it out, frothing at the mouth at the thought of her next meal. But her long digits had difficulty navigating the weapon.
Mark contemplated jumping from the 2 story window… but then… how much longer before she came for him.
Instead reached under the guest bed and pulled his father’s things out - The Molotov cocktail sloshed as he did.
Grabbing it and the lighter, he returned to his feet, entered the kitchen, where he saw the demon finally pulling out the blade.
“You can’t have me” Mark said , exiting the apartment, trembling hands found the left-behind key chain, and locked the door before hearing a slam on the other side. He created distance as her fingers reached under the door grabbed hold and ripped the bottom out. The demon becoming like mush once more, pulled herself through the small opening, tongue curled around itself, eyes still fixed on him
“Tasty tasty” she said.
Mark lit dad’s Molotov cocktail as she reconstituted,
“Taste this, bitch” he shouted, throwing it into her.
The glass shattered, alcohol spread first, into her eyes, all over her tongue, into every crevice, before she exploded into a ball of fire. .
The apartment shifted once more
Mark left the burning ball behind him, the demon’s large arms flailed around, setting fire to everything.
No sooner did he get out, did the place come down all around in a pile of rubble.
Surviving tenants looked on as black smoke billowed from between the cracks in the remains.
Overcome by exhaustion and profound grief, Mark sank to his knees and blacked out.
A week later - came to in the hospital - No family at his bedside.
He read reports of suspected arson in the town paper - apartment collapse, 7 missing - no bodies recovered. But that wasn’t even the worst news - The strange flower - the havoc that’d spread in a week…
“Might have this town” he thought, “might have our way of life”
“But you can’t have me”
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