Night Shoot

by David Sodergren

He positioned his boot over Robert’s head and stomped, the skull splintering, crushed underfoot. Robert died instantly, tiny porcelain shards of bone visible amongst the ripe fruit of his brain matter.

On particularly lean days, he had cruised past school playgrounds in far-off cities with a bag of sweeties and a sharpened knife in the passenger seat. The children were the easiest, but provided the least satisfying meal.

Elspeth shrank back across the gore-drenched floor as Sebastian’s son Elliott shambled into consciousness, his twisted face contorting like melted clay. One eye sagged open, the withered orb drooping loose. He used a sharpened talon to pierce the eyeball, forcing it back into the socket and pulling his eyelid closed again, then lumbered towards the mattress, towards Elspeth.

He spasmed forwards, one deflated eyeball popping out from its socket and landing like a pickled onion in Elspeth’s lap.

The girl had no skin, her face a mass of thread-like veins crocheted across her skull, wet and dripping. Sandy backed up, horrified. She thought the girl was dead. She was anything but. The little girl — Harriet, once upon a time — stood, her slavering tongue licking across the stringy webs of her lips. She held the desiccated body of a baby in her arms, holding it out for Sandy to take.

She cried out as her arterial tubes popped and snapped, sprays of blood hissing around the room.