Sour Candy

by Kealan Patrick Burke

A line from a book he’d read in high school popped into his mind: The nameless are easier to bury.

Somewhere between encountering the woman in the store and his arrival home, he’d entered The Twilight Zone.

Maybe the kid would have preferred a bologna sandwich or a hot dog, but that’d be tough-titty-said-the-kitty, now wouldn’t it?

Because that scream was a lot more than just an annoyance. No, the more Phil heard it, the more he started to think of it as something infinitely worse. He became convinced it was a beacon. The child was signaling the others.

In a situation in which every rational person is telling you a fact and you’re the one who denies it, doesn’t that make you the one most likely wrong?

People tend to distance themselves from the insane, as if to inquire is to request an invitation to the same dance.