Mary: An Awakening of Terror

by Nat Cassidy

“Yeah, I keep a roll of hundreds up my snatch while I sleep; it’s good for my lower back.”

Why was she so weird? Why was she always such an easy target? Because people could sense it, smell it on her. That weirdness. That wrongness. And wasn’t it at least partially her fault? She didn’t try hard enough to be normal. And then all those years of isolation and loneliness, like dirt, like smog, they accumulated, layer by layer, into an invisible film. A protective shell. Like the body of an ant.

Naked except for a white, bloody hood pulled over her head. A pillowcase.

In the split second before I react, I see the impressions of eyes, of a mouth, the dented wetness of the gory fabric.

Dark blood oozes down the woman’s neck and chest i...

And her hands … They weren’t hands at all, in fact, but red, raw, bloody talons, the fingers shredded and filed down to points that looked razor-sharp.