by Rob Bliss
We both left our jobs, saying we didn’t feel right going back to a normal life. Normality felt like an insult after what we had been through. Plus, we still didn’t feel entirely safe in our part of the world. If the family was everywhere, then we’d never feel safe staying anywhere. We could only lie low and hope that we could remain invisible.
We told no one about the family. Everyone everywhere was a potential family member. They had terrified us into silence.
We pooled our money, packed a single bag each, and got on a plane for Fiji. I proposed to her, my true bride, and we had a small ceremony on the beach. Outdoors, watching the sunset, sipping champagne with the preacher who married us and the hotel concierge who acted as a witness. Then they left us alone and we enjoyed our honeymoon in paradise.
A wedding as far removed as the one we had witnessed (or been in) before. Perfect.
We stayed in Fiji. Found a small place to live. I worked teaching preschool kids. Elizabeth worked as a waitress in a bar. We didn’t need, or want, much money. We were in Eden—money was useless.
Soon, Elizabeth was pregnant. We were having a baby boy. We named him Gordon.
He was a month and a half premature, a tiny red bundle clinging to life in an incubator. We adored him and knew he’d grow strong and be the center of our lives.
The hospital staff said that the tiny nubbin of a tail was just an evolutionary throwback and was nothing we should worry about. It would either fall off as the baby grew, or quick surgery could easily cut it off. Best to do such surgery when he was still a baby, since kids healed so quickly.
We watched the tail grow over the first few months of our son’s life. And patiently waited for it to fall off.
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About the Author
ROB BLISS was born in Canada in 1969. He has lived an horrific comedy of a life.
He watched half of his family die before he reached the age of twenty, with the other half absent. He is very familiar with coffins and graves, funerals and unholy weddings. He has held dozens of mindless jobs such as eating-while-driving courier, chain-smoking catering delivery driver, oyster boy, burned burger flipper, sleepy grass cutter, accident-prone car parker, illiterate baker’s assistant, idiot construction worker, truth-telling salesman, lazy security guard, acrophobic roof cleaner, and many others. He hates work (except for writing) and always will.
He has an honors degree in English and Writing from York University, Canada. He has 100 stories published in almost 30 magazines, plus three anthologies. He is the winner of SNM Magazine’s Author of the Year for 2013. He has read thousands of books in all genres and is never without a book by his nightstand.
His favorite horror authors are Edgar Allan Poe, Ann Radcliffe, Brian Lumley, Bryan Smith and Edward Lee.
Website: robbliss.flazio.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rob.bliss.779
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlissRob
