The Twisted Ones

by T. Kingfisher

My grandmother was a nasty, vicious woman. Mean as a snake, as my aunt Kate used to say, which is pretty unkind to snakes.

“Not much point, is there?” he said on the phone. “The only reason anyone would show up was to make sure she was actually dead.”

If dogs had religion, Satan would be the UPS guy.

(Yes, I own a hound dog and a pickup truck. No, I don’t have a gun rack on it. I fired a BB gun once in Girl Scouts. It went bang and made my hands hurt and that was the end of that.)

I made a mental note to buy a new rake. That one belonged to the spider now.

Books on World War II appear spontaneously in any house that contains a man over a certain age. I believe that’s science.

I resigned myself to the red Christmas-tree sheets smelling like hound. Most of my stuff does.

Oh The perks of having a dog lol

I made faces like the faces on the rocks, and I twisted myself about like the twisted ones, and I lay down flat on the ground like the dead ones.

Grandma wasn’t exactly a patriot, but she dearly loved having an excuse to hate a whole group of people.

and baby dolls. I kicked off my sandals and shoved my feet under Bongo’s ribs. He was like a space heater, even through the blankets, and unlike my last boyfriend, he never complained about my cold feet.

Dogs Are the best

I believe we had gone a little more than a mile at an ambling pace to reach the effigy. I also believe that Bongo and I covered that distance back in less than six minutes. I could not have duplicated that feat for all the money in the world.

The truck started before I was thinking enough to be afraid that it wouldn’t start. I blessed the engineers at Nissan and peeled out of the driveway at top speed.

The whole idea of having to explain it was so overwhelming that I parked the truck, threw my arms around Bongo, and burst into tears. Hounds are very huggable dogs. He bore this patiently, tail wagging, and licked my face occasionally. He was very calm.

Dogs are truly the best

We killed the wolves and then the apex predator was cultists or artists or dangerous lunatics.

My grandma, she’d say there were devils up there.… Tomas’s grandma was, it was almost certain, a better person than my grandma. Mine had been wicked enough that even devils would stay clear of her.

While I am generally willing to rant at people about smallpox and colonialism, this did not seem like an opportune time.

“You can if you get them hot enough,” I said. “I guess we could find a volcano.…” I had a mad image of Foxy and me, two unlikely hobbits lugging a two-hundred-pound rock to Mount Doom.

“Don’t mind me, hon, I get sarcastic when I’m scared to the tits.”

“Well, put it on, then! You think evil’s gonna sit around and wait while you get dressed?”

Foxy said, “… whut?” This was maybe not the most intelligent response, but it summed up my thoughts pretty well.

I’d go to… to a mall or a Walmart or something. Surely unholy abominations wouldn’t follow me to Walmart.

The mud-dauber effigy made an almost mechanical buzzing noise, legs drawing up like a dying spider, but I stomped on it again, because how dare it touch my dog?