Content Warning: Racism
There was a vampire in the sunshine state. Allegedly. Apparently. This is one of those stories that was told to you by someone who was told this by their cousin who was told this by their distant cousin who was told this by their distant half-aunt twice removed, who was told this and told that and told this to such an extent that the original source has been completely subtracted from the equation. In any case, I was told this story by my uncle, the neck-beard kind everyone avoids at family reunions. He believes taxes are used to turn government officials into lizard people, so bear with me if I didn’t believe him at first. I decided to investigate the matter myself, diving into the musty corner of my library with notepad at the ready. I found only a few scraps to sew together this fabrication. Apologies if it isn’t the truth, but most things rarely are. *** The vampire moved in from Transylvania. Or Romania. Or Bulgaria. No one could really tell what she was saying with that thick accent of hers, and they still couldn’t figure it out upon repetition. She appeared bothered by having to repeat herself, and left after a brief introduction. The neighbors didn’t know she was a vampire. Not at first. They certainly knew she was foreign because she didn’t blend into the sunset and introduced herself after sundown. She explained that she would be staying at the house on Shady Hill Drive, that dilapidated number with the overgrown weeds and sagging shutters threatening to swallow the house into a sink hole. It looked like the burnt edge to the neighborhood’s otherwise pristine sheet of paper. The HOA had been fining that place for years; the passive-aggressive envelopes stuck out of the mailbox and swam into the storm drain. People had forgotten who lived there. No deliveries came to the door, no car went in and out of the driveway. All that inhabited it seemed to be a moaning spirit that had gotten progressively louder as time passed. The vampire said this was her grandmother, and she had been called to take care of her. “Grand what?” the neighbors asked. “Grandmother,” she repeated, heavy on the r. They still did not understand. The vampire had no name. Well, she did, but none of the neighbors could remember how to pronounce it. For our purposes, we shall call her Name. Name’s face was smothered with sunscreen. You couldn’t tell its origin from a first glance or a hard stare. She dressed in all black in long boxy cuts that blended with the hair distorting her eyes, and altogether gave the hazy impression of an ink smudge. Her arrival was quiet. Via a dented black car she quickly curbed into the garage. Neighbors watched her lug in cardboard boxes and foul-smelling Tupperware carrying foreign food, no doubt. There was a meowing and a brief glance of yellow eyes—she had a black cat. Come morning, the house had swallowed them completely. *** Name did not like Florida. She had come from mountains and clean air and seasons, and this place was as flat and flabby as its retiree residents. Nothing changed, nothing rose. She could stand in one spot and see the entire state stretch out in front of her. And the heat. Perhaps the sunshine state was built in a pot of oil designed to turn its residents into french fries. It was inconvenient to be a vampire in the sunshine state. As you can imagine, it made Name’s days remarkably short. The night only started at close to eight, and when she tried to sleep, the sun blared through two sets of blackout curtains, leaving her tired and irritable for her work ahead. The only reason Name moved here was because she had no other option. Her family was dying and near destitution; it was difficult for vampires to get jobs in a farm country where work revolved around the sun. People had started to get suspicious. Why couldn’t they work in the day? Vampire hunters began to spring up again, bearing torches and stakes. Name’s parents were fearful. They did not want their only child to die, but they did not want to send her into the world alone either. Grandmother had moved to Florida some ages ago when the twilight years set in. She’d chosen this location because it had a high chance of killing her—precisely what she was looking for. Grandmother had apathetically said as much over the phone, as it was easier for her to withstand Name’s mother’s wails from a distance. As Mother wrung the phone cord, Grandmother said simply, “I have been around for four centuries. Humanity is tiresome. I am not going to actively kill myself, but yes, I am trying to make the chances higher. Now stop your wailing and give me the recipe. This is the main reason I called.” At least there are no hunters, she reminded herself. She still remembered what her mother’s flesh smelt like when a torch seared across it. Name was rarely seen by the neighborhood. She collected her mail at night and did likewise for the garbage. She was not a bad neighbor, she made no nuisance of herself. Her cat was a civil creature that wore bow ties. The only irritating thing she did was show up at the Publix right before closing, forcing the workers to remain there until the very last minute. She roamed outside sometimes. Tidied up a few spare hedges with her cat. She seemed to be interested in plant life. But the moans at night were getting louder, and sometimes the neighbors would hear a girl shouting. “Wonder if it’s a ritual,” said Billy-Bob, four houses down. His house was an orange as loud as his personality, and just as painful to observe. “With that black cat of hers.” He laughed loudly and smacked one meaty hand on the back of his son, who winced. “Why are the walls so thin on that house, anyway?” wondered Jack. “We hear everything.” “Well, it’s not just that we hear everything, Jack. We’re listening. On purpose. You have to keep tabs on suspicious characters. As a matter of fact, the gang should probably give her the old welcome, don’t you think? Have you seen a cross on that girl?” Jack squinted. They were stalking Name from behind the shrubbery, using the bird-watching binoculars. Jack felt completely ridiculous, but he knew he couldn’t tell his father so. “No.” Billy-Bob smiled. Yes, indeed. Life for Name was okay in Florida. Especially without the hunters. Then one day, the hunters came. *** They wore khakis and Hawaiian shirts. They carried their holy water in Zephyrhills bottles. When Name opened the door after a heavy knock studded with gold rings, she saw a group of them all smiling at her. The largest was the man in the center, a rotund character with a belt struggling to keep his lardy stomach in. He held a cross and gestured proudly with it. “Hello, madam. I don’t believe we’ve had the privilege of meeting one another.” Name’s cat curled around her ankles, tail flared. “No, I don’t suppose so,” said Name, keeping on a civil smile. The hunters looked at her, expecting her to step outside. She remained behind the safety of the screened porch, face obscured by the mesh. All she saw were hungry, shiny eyes. “We would like to extend a warm greeting to you.” “I feel the warmth.” “May we ask what your religion is?” “For what purpose?” A woman with a porky complexion tilted forward at the hips. “We would like to make sure you’re following the word of our lord and savior, Amen.” “Amen,” the group chorused, and stood frozen with blank smiles. “And we would like to extend our invitations to a Tupperware party Sunday night.” They slid a single white envelope under the mesh. When Name bent to pick it up, an old woman’s moan leaked through the roof, and Name muttered some manner of thank you before the shadows wrapped around her, and she disappeared. The hunters felt a chill thaw out of them. They tried to follow Name’s silhouette through the windows, listened to her footsteps echo through the thin walls. They went up, up, up…ending in a loud clap upstairs. Then nothing. Name eyed the invite with a healthy dose of skepticism. The Shadednight (patent pending) was thisclose to giving the results she wanted under blue light, and now these neighbors needed to force their company on her. “Just go,” said Grandmother, shouting at Name from underneath her blankets. “An hour out of your time.” Name clipped an inch off the plant and fed it to her flytrap. “I highly doubt it,” she said, observing the flytrap’s disgusted reaction. “Go before I kick your boney backside out the door myself. What else have you to do? Besides that stupid plant.” Name would’ve liked to see Grandmother try, seeing as though this woman couldn’t get out of bed without complaining of a thousand different aches, but she said nothing. She also didn’t explain what else she had to do. The HOA had sent new a complaint about the tree out back, a big desultory thing that hadn’t been able to grow leaves since an electrical line short-circuited and burnt it to a crisp years ago. Its branches stretched over the house on Shady Hill, caging it in like thick black bars. And now Name had gotten a letter saying the roots were growing unchecked, and would push up out of the yard and into the house if they didn’t do something. Not that they’d care. Name stood under the tree with her hands on her hips, surveying the gnarled base and the knots twisting around it. “What do you think she’s doing?” said Billy-Bob. “Gonna make the roots rise out and kill us all?” Jack gnawed his lip. “Maybe she’s just looking at it.” “But she looks at it so menacingly. And she’s only ever out at nighttime, do you realize that Jack? Nighttime. What roams in the nighttime?” “Werewolves?” Jack guessed. “No, you fool. Vampires. And she’s from the countries they are, ain’t she?” The suggestion did something to Jack. He wouldn’t stop staring at Name, searching for pointy canines. She wore reflective sunglasses at the gathering, and a snobbishly high collar that covered half her face. Maybe she has light sensitivity, Jack thought, then, no. Think reasonably. It’s probably to hide her hypnotic eyes. “I hear you’re from Scandinavia,” said Billy-Bob’s wife. “Very exotic.” She did look so exotic, they thought, sitting at the table like a bird with its feathers clipped off. Out of her habitat, her colors didn’t work to camouflage, and she sat in their barbecue like a stain. And Name certainly felt like one. She didn’t know what to do in this sweaty atmosphere. The neighborhood women, tanned like cheese puffs and glazed by hot pink nails, were sorting through the containers. Even though they looked like clowns with their fannies sticking out too far, the respect they demanded for themselves dulled any social faux pas they made, like searching for boogers when they thought no one was watching or speaking into another’s face with salted breath. When Name went to touch one of the containers, Mr. David told her and only her, snidely, “Careful with that.” Being careful was practically the only thing Name was doing. She was afraid moving one bone wrong would cause a massive fit. Keeping up her ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’ was already getting taxing, and she struggled to find polite responses to their dissecting conversations about where she’s from and what she is, questions she never seemed to answer satisfactorily. Finding the results poor, then, they discarded Name like a scrapped out carcass, leaving her to stand in the corner alone. She didn’t know how much more manners she could afford before something broke. Then something broke. One of the women dropped a glass container, but no one took offense to the mistake and quickly laughed it off. It occurred to Name that if someone started a fire right now, they would probably be forgiven as long as one of their own did it. If Name were to so much as scratch a lid, though, she had no doubt Mr. David would want her head. Then they tried to poison her. Mrs. Harris tweaked her nose up as she knelt beside Name to put the meat on the grill. “Pardon,” she said, unfeeling. More women added more things. Sausages. Patties. They handed Name a plastic plate and pointed at the raw, bleeding slices still wrapped in plastic. “Suppose you like it that way?” Name tried to laugh. Then she smelt the smoke. “Is there garlic here?” She’d meant it as an innocent question. And it should have been. These people couldn’t “Why yes, sweetheart. In everything. Garlic chips. Garlic powder. Garlic sauce. Garlic is the favorite spice of Tupperware folk, don’t you know?” But the way Mrs. Harris so heartily said this was beginning to convince Name otherwise. Mrs. Billy-Bob laughed. “Healthy for you, too.” Mrs. Harris echoed it. “All that allicin.” Mrs. Jones made it a harmony. “Does make your breath smell.” They blended together, one serpent-headed mass of tan and teeth. And suddenly Name felt revulsion well up inside her, oily and bloated, as she looked around the room of people now staring at her like they’d discovered an awful secret to titter over later. Teachers, pious churchgoers, yoga instructors, football enthusiasts, housewives. The kinds of people who didn’t know what it meant to be counted outside of normal. They shopped at the same stores, lived in the same houses, ate the same food, spoke on a regular basis and weren’t afraid to share their opinions because they knew they would be the same. Their pores smelled the same, their hands prayed the same, and their eyes looked the same, beady from staring into the sun and staring down people who wouldn’t think of retaliating against those with the righteous shield of normalcy. Despite only seeing it in slivers, Jack recognized the look on Name’s face. He’d worn it himself when cornered in school bathrooms or locked in his room for doing something ungodly again. Jack tried to choke this sympathy, but it fluttered through his grip like torn scraps of paper. Through an open window, an old woman moaned. “Civilite needs his food,” said Name, and like the Tupperware, she packed herself up tight and shut herself away. The Shadednight was beginning to take shape. Name worked in the garage after Grandmother chased her there for using chemicals in the kitchen. Civilite observed her from his wall perch. It was a full-moon tonight. Name left the garage door open and placed the Shadednight, in its precious azure pot, on the cusp of the barrier between outside and in. Moonlight hit the plant’s black petals, and they began to tingle, growing sparkles, unfurling into— “WHAT THE HELL?” Civilite jumped off his perch with a hiss. Name’s head shot up like someone had shot her straight between the eyes. Across the street was Mr. Jenkins, pointing, pointing, keeping the other hand tightly curled around his dog’s leash. She looked about to suffocate. “Drugs aren’t allowed in an HOA neighborhood!” Name wiped the dust off her skirt. “I’m a botanist. This is an experiment.” “Experiment for what?” Name did not think this man deserved an explanation, but she was worried of what he’d do without one. She remembered how her father had been arrested after refusing to disclose what he’d been doing out at night (watching the moon), and shivered as she saw the crossbows pointed as his chest. People owned guns in this neighborhood. She cradled the little flower, which shimmered like a blue monarch’s wings. “I endeavor to make a crop which grows fully under moonlight. This plant is medicinal, and can be used as is to treat wounds, or be cooked into food for a lovely peppery taste that cures up to ten diseases.” Name touched a petal. The Shadednight hacked. It curled up into black twists, and then fell apart in a powdery puff of ash. Name frowned. “Once I get it working, that is.” “Drugs,” Mr. Jenkins said through a dry mouth. “The medical kind.” “Drugs,” he said again. He pulled his dog away by the throat. Name felt her own throat tightening. Then things worsened. Name would be outside, working on the Shadednight, when she’d have apparitions of men in khakis watching her. After the first two days, she’d convinced herself it was a dream. They gradually became more solid, and she saw camera clicks. Paranoid, Name shifted her tools to the backyard and felt eyes watching every creak and groan as she did so. Then there came a high-tech whir, and Name looked up to see cameras hanging off both her neighbor’s gutters. They swiveled to watch her with a branding stare. Her heart beat unsteadily, reminded as she was by the sight of the hunters back home pressing their faces to her window and clawing at the glass as though they could move the curtains away. “Surely it can’t be legal.” “HOA check-ups reveal they are of standard commercial regulation,” said the representative. “I assure you. They may look magnified, but they probably can’t see more than the edges of your lawn.” Unsatisfied by the answer, Name decided to test the theory by skulking around her pool with an empty can of gasoline. It was hardly three minutes before her bell rang. Billy-Bob’s crew loomed out front. “Hey there, girly. We just wanted to talk, neighbor to neighbor. Saw something distressing. Are you doing okay?” Name stood stock-still, petting Civilite, who’d wound himself around her shoulders. Her clothes did not feel thick enough. “How did you see me?” Billy-Bob held up a cross. “I think you need God, missy.” “I need privacy,” she said, shaking, and Civilite opened his jaws and let out a wild hiss. Billy-Bob and his crew landed on their collective caboose, backpedaled in the air before stumbling to their knees and running away without breathing. Name called the HOA once more. “And he saw me. He came over and said so.” There was a pause, then, “Why were you walking around with a gas can?” “To catch his attention!” “Seems to me like you’re the problem.” The line clicked dead. Billy-Bob, meanwhile, was spiraling under the heat of having his neurons move for the first time in decades. Runes had glowed on that cat’s forehead—he swore it. That was some mystical being—a familiar, wasn’t it? “The familiar’s controlling her,” he shouted, bursting into the living room with his terrified crew. “Familiar?” Mr. Harris repeated. “But I thought she’s a vampire, not a witch.” “Well, it doesn’t matter what she is. She just yelled at me, and that means she’s done.” He licked his chapped lips before adding, “And her little cat, too.” *** Black tendrils broke out of the garage floor, sending up clouds of cement dust. Name rushed out in a panic, lab coat billowing around like a ghost’s drape, rusted clippers held up. She snipped a piece off the black root and inspected it. It was dead. This tree shouldn’t have been growing. How on earth was it still growing? Name placed it in a petri dish and enhanced the microscope. There were white flecks there. Wait, oh no. Oh god, no. “What is the ruckus?” Grandmother demanded. “I think the tree has made a pact with fungus,” Name cried. “So?” Name quickly phoned the cheapest gardening company she could find. They arrived in blue slacks with baseball caps pulled low over their eyes, and tilted their heads up and down, surveying. “We’ll have to chop it off bit by bit,” said one. “It’s awfully big, though. Might damage your house,” said another. “I don’t care,” said Name, quite close to shouting. “Just do it, please. I’ll pay you cash. Excuse me, I have some tests to run.” She disappeared inside. As soon as she left, Billy-Bob and Jack pulled the hats off. Fortunately for them, Name hadn’t looked at the names of the company employees. Billy-Bob nodded at the accomplices they’d brought along, and told them to keep looking like they were doing something. “Where’s that damned cat?” Name had locked the windows and doors. Every piece of glass was blocked by a thick curtain or two. Eventually, Billy-Bob gave up, pressed a screwdriver into a keyhole, and splintered right through. The door swung open noiselessly. Inside was dark and dank and smelt of fermented plant life. Their breath fogged up in front of them. They could make out only vague shapes of furniture and—there. In the back, on the staircase. Triangular ears and wide yellow eyes. “Where’s the witch?” spat Billy-Bob. Jack peered around corner, then pressed his ear to the garage door. “Out there, tinkering.” “On objects of doom, no doubt.” Billy-Bob leaned onto his haunches with more effort than should have been necessary. He beckoned with both hands. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” The effort was fruitless. Upstairs came a loud moan. The cat arched his spine and melted into the shadows. The hunters shared a look. Cautiously, Billy-Bob put one foot on the stairs before realizing his weight and rickety wood did not a silent advance make. With a hiss at his son, Jack was up on his tippy-toes, hand on the banister like a frightened ballerina. The moaning grew louder and raspier. It mixed with static and sounds of someone talking in a tongue outside of English, upset, extremely upset. Incantations? Jack wondered. But a vampire wouldn’t be sick enough to torture her own Grandmother. Would she? Maybe they eat each other when one gets too old. Survival of the fittest. Or no, are those werewolves? At the landing, a crackly white light cut into the black. Jack could barely make out the cat, huddled under a bed. In the center of the bed was… “EXCUSE ME?” And there was Name at the base of the stairs, rigid like ice. The only indication of the anger in her voice were her eyebrows, completely slanted over her mirrored spectacles. Billy-Bob cowered next to her, saying, “Don’t hurt me,” over and over. Jack, however, felt quite the confident man. “It’s too late! I figured out what you’re doing Name smiled coldly. “Oh, yes?” “Yes!” Jack looked over at the lump in the bed, a fleshy thing with skin that sagged the way heavy fabric should. Its eyes were wide and veined with red, and one pudgy pale hand clasped a remote controller. He looked left, towards the light. A TV, and on it, a woman beating a man with a sandal. The fleshy thing looked utterly enraptured by this. She took one long breath, turned slowly towards Jack, and said with a shockingly wide smile, “Finally. Death?” “I—um—” “Grandmother is watching her soap operas,” said Name. “It’s the only thing she ever does.” Jack’s mouth nearly ran from his face. “B-but-but-but why were the moans getting louder?” Grandmother herself answered this. “Because it’s the weddingnow! Have you anyidea how much dramahas been happening? Sofia’s finally realized that Eduardo’s a cheater! Oh, I can hardly stand it!” She began wailing and beating her pudgy fists. The cat was scared out of his hiding place, and bolted down the stairs. Name was too fixated by Jack to notice Civilite, and her precious cat made the mistake of passing by crouching Billy-Bob’s grip. “Get out of here,” Name intoned, rising up the stairs. Her shadow grew beside her, submerging Jack’s completely. “Get out before I turn your skulls into goblets.” For a moment, her spectacles dipped. Whatever Jack saw there made his mind spin. He suddenly was not a hunter, but a monster himself. “I’m sorry,” said Jack. “If you were sorry, you’d have grown a conscience.” As if sprung from a box, Jack bolted. Name kept her fingers glued to her temple, trying to make sure her brain didn’t bolt, too. “Civilite?” she called. “Civilite?” No meow. Name circled around the house in a fast track, peering below tables, in closets, behind cabinets. Even outside, where Civilite was not apt to roam. The realization hit her like a dead fish. Civilite was on an altar. Or maybe he was on a laminate counter top. He couldn’t really tell, but it was uncomfortable anyhow, flayed here and lit by the moon. People were lining in from the front door with hot things and long things and pointy things Civilite couldn’t name. But he recognized the people carrying them. They were more orange than he remembered, but they burned with the same self-righteousness. Mr. Thomas was standing over Civilite, who’d been tied down to the altar by a Publix plastic bag. He’d been elected to hold the shiny thing over Civilite because he was the best turkey carver around. “I don’t want to kill it,” he said sadly. “Do it!” Billy-Bob screamed. “It’s the only way to get rid of the curse!” “But what do we do with the blood after?” “Draw it in circles around the cat, or something! Maybe mark it on our faces! If all else goes wrong, we’ll just nail it to that girl’s mailbox as a lesson!” “We can’t kill a cat,” Jack mumbled. Steam puffed out of Billy-Bob’s ears. “If you love the cat so much, then, why don’t you kill it?” He grabbed the shiny thing out of Mr. Thomas’s hands and foisted it upon Jack. “Do it. Right now.” Jack’s eyes warbled. “Can I do it outback?” “Who cares?” Name was playing with blood, too. She didn’t want to do this. This was not what this plant was intended for, but they’d forced her hand. She held her thumb over the Shadednight and dug a clipper into it. Cold blood bubbled on contact and dripped into the soil. The Shadednight sucked it up immediately, almost as if it’d been waiting for a more extreme nourishment, and red seeped up its black stem, staining it maroon. She placed it in the moonlight. The petals unfurled into blue monarch wings. Name touched a piece of paper to one of them, and the paper hissed before dissolving into a pile of ash. The effect had been successfully reversed. Name went along her row of tests, stabbing each finger and palm and watching the blood drip. After smothering the cuts with band-aids, she went out into the front yard and planted flower after flower after flower. She planted them in the backyard, too, watching the cameras as she did. When she came to the black tree, she smeared a thumbprint of blood at the base, and the roots hummed appreciatively. “They are going to kill us,” Grandmother mused. “I recognize that look. Ooh, I cannot wait to die. I cannot take this insufferable humanity any longer.” She looked up from her dark thoughts to see Name at the flowers. “Do not bother. I told you—leave me dead!” “This isn’t about you. They took my cat.” “So?” “So that’s wrong.” “That does not matter. People like this always win. This state is made for sun-dwellers. You are never going to break them.” “That doesn’t mean I can’t try. And besides. It’s nighttime.” But this was not home. This state was not the same. They were supposed to be more civilized here. Then she saw a black lump on her doorstep. Wrapped in a Publix bag. It was cold. The hunters watched Name. She did not move her face. She quietly undid the bag and peeked inside before looking up with a start, straight through to Jack, who smiled sheepishly for only her to see. Name nodded and placed the bag inside. She closed the door behind her, dusted off her skirt, and approached. The moon was full. The Shadednights were glowing. Fires and sharp objects glinted off of Name’s spectacles. The neighbors began to chant, “Leave, leave, LEAVE,” until all Name could see were crooked teeth. She raised her hands. They raised their guns. “I have one thing to tell you,” she boomed, stepping closer. “As you likely know, my tree has some issues. The roots are growing and are threatening to swallow my house.” Cheers. “But,” Name said, emphasizing the syllable, “you are fools. The dead roots have attached to a fungus underneath. If my calculations are correct, it does not just grow under my house. It grows beneath the entire neighborhood. One large mass of fungus.” “YOU LIE!” shouted Billy-Bob. Name looked at him coolly. “I do not. The roots will swallow all of your homes. It will destroy all of you. It is not just me. But only my expertise can get rid of it. Will you destroy me as well?” “Fine,” said Name. Name raised her hands higher. Blackness punctured the ground in thick ropy tendrils and cascaded over the hunters like a giant bottle of ink. Some ran full-tilt towards Name and trampled in the weeds, touching the Shadednights and disappearing in puffs of ash. The roots broke through roofs and slammed down, stretching over the neighborhood like gnarled fingers, sending lawn ornaments flying and street lamps crashing. Billy-Bob shouted and cocked a pistol. Name felt the sound rattle down her spine and snapped her neck to look. Jack jerked his father’s arm away, but Billy-Bob only cursed and elbowed him backward, re-adjusted his aim, and fired. A red ring blossomed between Name’s eyes. She went down, cracking her head on the concrete. Then they were upon her, driving in stakes and dousing her with holy water and garlic. The house screamed, and the torch-bearers acted, setting it alight. The dead branches made it all the more flammable; it was consumed almost instantly. The screaming grew heightened, heightened, until it swelled into a storm of laughter. There was one last ha, and what sounded suspiciously like a finally, and then all was still, and fresh soot coated the hunter’s faces. “No,” shouted Jack. “No.” He pushed the hunters aside as quickly as his awkward limbs would allow. Name’s body had been painted black with ash. He removed her mirrored spectacles. And began to weep. *** I am not sure what they saw in Name’s eyes. Perhaps the hunters realized they looked the same as theirs, even if more darkly colored. More likely, they realized that in death, all pupils dilate the same. The twin pinpricks in Name’s eyes were no different to what they saw in the caskets of their dead mothers or brothers or fathers or sisters. The neighborhood soon fell ill. There was a clot of fungus underneath that had grown large and dangerous. It emanated from a burned plot on Shady Hill Drive, and grew up in thick bars through the remaining copy and pasted houses, like tethers of bad will personified. Jack decided to leave. On his way out, he stopped the car to pick up a red-slicked cat with large dark eyes. Afterwards, all I know for certain is that Jack probably loved Civilite, and took care of him as best he could. Even if he could do nothing for Civilite’s scars.
About the Author Seven-year-old Iman Bhyat was very sad to discover a book as her birthday present. Oh, how things change. Like her protagonist, she loves cats and tinkering in the dark. Her illustration “Florida Gothic” was published in the PTK Nota Bene Arts Magazine, and her mom was very proud.Florida Gothic
have done any of this intentionally.
to this old woman!”
Rather than take her chances alone with pennies in her pockets and a hat full of lint, Name’s parents encouraged her to move in with Grandmother if it meant a stable place to sink her heels into. It was a better plan than flying out to some gloomy nowhere and fighting with poverty, but Name was determined to put up with this place for only as long as she needed.
***
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***
Name looked out the window. She saw the hunters outside her parents’ home as they rushed to stuff her things into her suitcase. She saw the flames of their torches and the glints of their pitchforks, their stakes and bulbs of garlic and packs of holy water. She saw the spittle in their mouths and the crazed hatred in their eyes, hatred that had festered for so long none of them could really say why.
The answer was given without hesitation.