Horror

“Sing me a lullaby.”

I slide deeper into the bath, letting the water cover my mouth. We’re now at eye level, me and the yellow rubber duck.

Carl booked a doctor’s appointment six months after the Thing started to get out of hand.
“It feels like there’s something growing inside of me.”

Her heart thumped wildly. She gazed out at the spot on the road where she had been, imagining blood-stained bitumen and a floral vigil.

We warned Eleni to be careful in that understorey—to stay in sight of us—but she was an explorer.

Margaret rose to consciousness reluctantly, heavy with the weight of slumber. She blinked as her eyes slowly remembered how to see.

A few kilometres on, at parking section 543 delta-blue, sat the new employee parking. Fiona peered out her windows, hoping for the sight of a fellow worker.

… but words pierce me and get stuck inside. They burrow deep into my chest and explode in a mushroom of hatred.

“I’m just so glad to see you.” Water dripped from the man’s eyelashes. “I know you don’t know me, but I’m glad to see a face. Could I just have a minute?”

It should’ve been impossible, and many thought it was—a new island had appeared as if out of thin air, or from the very depths of the ocean.

I thought I could spend the night there, write some colour, tell prospective buyers it’s not … haunted, or whatever?