Tagged: Deborah Tapper

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Hoodwinked

It’s midnight and the girl in red keeps screaming.

He races to tackle her assailant and finds he’s grabbing handfuls of unkempt fur, solid muscle. Dense clouds part and moonlight pours down as the hideous thing rips free, whirling to confront him. Howling and snapping, yellow eyes blazing hate.

The girl’s laughing.

Peeling off her scarlet dress, her human skin.

He runs, but she’s faster. A leap brings him down and she wrestles him onto his back, claws slicing. Opens his belly with one ferocious swipe, triumphant smile sprouting razor fangs.

“Don’t get greedy, Grandma,” she snarls. “This one’s mine!”

Footloose

He wakes strapped to an operating table.

Specimen jars line the walls and two smiling girls lean over him. He recognises one: the tireless salesgirl who insisted on fetching every pair of shoes his size, who said he had perfect feet.

She doesn’t have feet now. Or legs. And neither does her sister. One glimpse of their snake-like lower halves and he’s struggling, yelling for help.

Nobody comes.

The giggling sisters lay out their saws and scalpels as his frantic eyes skim the room, desperately seeking escape. And he finally sees what’s inside the countless glass jars.

Perfect human feet.

Reclusive

She’s high in an inaccessible tower, singing sweetly as she spins. That beautiful voice is mesmerizing. He spends hopeless hours circling, searching for a way in.

Eventually she lowers a thin silky rope. It’s strangely sticky, but it takes his weight so he climbs up. Squeezes eagerly through the tiny window – into a shadowy room overflowing with tapestries. Attendants hover silently, motionless.

He blinks – and the tapestries turn into thick cobwebs. Countless corpses hang from them, sucked dry.

She scuttles out. Strikes before he can flee.

And once he’s safely bundled in her larder, she starts singing and spinning again.

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

They dragged Tolly away and tortured him for days, crushing his feet until bones shattered and the relentless boot-like vise drooled scarlet. He was chosen because I made the poppet, adding a thread stolen from the witchfinder’s cloak and mud scraped from his footprints. I named it, sewed those watchful eyes shut and buried it under the blackthorn.

Tolly crawls from the shadows again tonight, sobbing and clutching with desperate hands, his lower legs a bloody ruin. If he knew about me, he’d turn me in. But he doesn’t.

He’ll hang soon. Or burn.

Then he’ll leave me in peace.

Three, Four, Knock At The Door

The witchfinder’s men are pressing Adelise with her own door.

She’s already stretched out on the muddy ground, ropes pinning her wrists and ankles. She screams and begs as the heavy door covers her, incoherent with terror. She’s a good woman who works charms for childbirth and sickness, but that doesn’t matter.

Now they’re piling stones on top. I cover my ears. Still feel every thud, every airless wail. She’ll come tonight, writhing into my nightmares. Shapeless, smashed, eyes flopping in her wrecked skull, her broken mouth demanding justice while condemning me with that one last, suffocating word.

My name.

Five, Six, Pick Up Sticks

They’re building my pyre.

They half-drowned me. Beat me. Stabbed me with long iron nails, searching for witchmarks. Crushed my hands and feet. Tightened ropes around my head until my eyes bled. Signed the confession that I’d spat on and left me alone in darkness and filth.

Waiting to burn.

They have to carry me to the stake. Rope me up like a child’s toy, kindling piled around my legs. Spectators jostle and jeer, eager faces squeezing closer, hungry for entertainment.

So I let the fire build and build before I turn it on them.

Give them what they deserve.

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Liar

My big sister said if you tell lies, the bogeyman gets you.

He knows. And he’ll creep through the window in the middle of the night, cut your tongue out with an enormous pair of scissors and put it in his pocket.

But that’s not how it happened.

It was a bogeywoman, and she slid through a crack in the wall. She didn’t cut my big sister’s tongue out at all – she chewed it off with her long, sharp teeth. And she didn’t put it in her pocket, either: she swallowed it.

That’s the truth.

Because I don’t tell lies.

Debtor

Someone’s shaking him.

He jolts awake. Three hulking men surround his bed. ‘You owe her,’ one says.

‘Owe?’ He sits up. He doesn’t owe anyone anything.

‘Three. Plus interest.’

‘You got the wrong guy.’

‘Two molars and an incisor.’

‘Teeth…?’ he says. ‘You’re the Tooth Fairy?’

‘I collect for her. Three plus twenty years’ interest – that’s fifty.’

‘This is crazy!’ He’s angry now. And scared. ‘I don’t have fifty teeth!’

‘That’s okay. She accepts other things.’

They pin him down. Open a case. He sees pliers, saws, scalpels. The man chooses shears. Grins, blades ready. ‘We call it parts payment.’

Stalker

She’s under the bed again. He’s never seen her, but she whispers to him. He jams his fingers in his ears. Won’t listen.

His parents try therapy. Move house several times. It’s no good: she always finds him. He’s sixteen now, sleeping in yet another new room. He’s in bed when he feels her sliding in beside him. Bony hand on his chest. Her voice, whispering.

This time he listens.

The house is empty for months after he vanishes. Then another family moves in. Their son won’t sleep in that room. He hears things under the bed.

A voice.

Whispering.

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Mirror Image

His kid sister’s banging on the bathroom door again, so he turns the music up even louder. Combs his fingers through his dark hair. Tilts his head a little, admiring the effect.

The mirror boy smiles back, exposing razor teeth.

He stares in frozen disbelief as the grin splits open, mouth stretching until those teeth are all he sees. Then he moves. Too late. His twisted image lunges out, jaws crunching shut.

Deafening music drowns the screams, the terrible wet ripping.

His reflection slides back below the mirror’s surface like a satisfied shark, tattered skin still caught between its teeth.

Night Vision

The room looks slightly different at night.

He stands in front of the mirror. Bed, closet, unwashed laundry – all normal. Then he snaps the light off. Stares at the shadowy reflection. Something in the far corner, hunched and shapeless.

Not in his room.

Only in the mirror.

It creeps closer every night. Slow. Furtive. Hungry. When it climbs on his bed he gets scared. Hides in the bathroom. There’s nothing in the mirror the following night. He sleeps in the tub again anyway. Just to be sure.

That’s where the police find his skin.

But they don’t find anything else.

Looking Glass

The smudge won’t go.

She breathes on the antique mirror, tries again. She’s selling to a fussy collector, who won’t buy if he sees this flaw. It’s almost like an eye. And rubbing only makes it worse.

She pushes harder – harder – and her hand plunges through.

The glass seals around her wrist, trapping her. She struggles, kicks the mirror, but it won’t break and it’s sucking her in. It’s already swallowed her arm to the elbow. She fights until her face squashes against the glass. Then she screams instead.

She’s gone.

The mirror ripples.

And something very different comes out.