by Melody Grace
“Who?” Alex said, careful to chew with his mouth open, so that Rudy could get a clear view of the mushed-up up mess.
Rudy shoved more pizza into his mouth, even though the last bite was still there. “Bloody Mary. And Bloody Marvin.”
Alex replied, “Blood Mary. Isn’t she like a ghost that shows up in the mirror if you say her name a bunch of times?”
Rudy shook his head, swallowing. “No, that’s just like a game, or something. Bloody Mary and Bloody Marvin used to be our moms’ imaginary friends. Then they were my imaginary friends. But now . . .”
Rudy was reaching for another piece of pizza. Alex cleared his throat to urge his cousin to finish his sentence.
Rudy grinned wide before taking a big bite. “But now . . . they’re real!”
Alex looked around the room. He didn’t like the dark shadows in the corners, or the darkness that filled the hallway that led to the bathroom and bedrooms.
“Real?” He asked. “Like . . . how?”
“Well,” Rudy said, hopping down off of his stool and grabbing another paper plate off of the stack by the pizza box. “Our moms believed in them so much that they were almost real. But then when I started believing in them, I believed so hard that they did get real.”
Rudy took a couple of pizza slices out of the box and placed them on the plate. “They live in the attic. They only come out when Mom and Dad are gone.”
He then grabbed two more of the red plastic cups and poured soda into them. Alex suddenly didn’t feel hungry, anymore. He couldn’t stop looking into the dark shadows that filled every corner of the room. They need higher wattage light bulbs, he thought. Rudy continued to speak.
“I guess it’s wrong to say that they live in the attic. ‘Cause they aren’t really alive. Especially Marvin. Mary gets mad at him a lot. When she does, she pulls his head off and puts it in that big vase at the end of the hall. After a while, he’ll come down from there,” Rudy nodded towards the ceiling, where the door to the attic was fixed, “and he’ll feel around until he finds it and puts it back on. His head, that is.”
Alex didn’t want to hear any more. He jumped up, “I’m going to the bathroom!”
He looked at the shadows of the hallway, groping until he found the light switch and flipped it on. The light helped, at bit, but he wasn’t happy to see the large, ornamental vase at the end of the hall. He held his breath, and practically ran down the hall into the bathroom, the last door on the right, careful not to look into the big vase as he opened and closed the door.
After he did his business, Alex hesitated, dreading what he might see when he opened the bathroom door. She puts his head in that big vase at the end of the hall . Glad that he’d already peed, Alex slowly pulled the door open and stepped out into the hall, deliberately turning his head and body away from the vase.
“Hey, you two up there!” Rudy’s voice floated from the kitchen in a too-loud whisper. “Come and get your food before Mom and Dad get home!”
Alex froze, wanting to believe that his cousin was pranking him, but feeling ninety-nine percent sure that he wasn’t.
Rudy said, “And Bloody Marvin, if Bloody Mary’s taken your head again, you know where to find it.”
Alex really needed the bathroom again, but he couldn’t move. He wanted to call out for his other cousin, Rudy’s big sister, but he couldn’t remember her name. Slowly, he opened his eyes, feeling his head turn towards the vase on the floor next to him. He didn’t want to look inside. He had to look inside.
As Alex leaned over to peer inside the vase, he heard the unoiled hinges of the attic door creaking open, and something that sounded like big, bare feet hit the floor.
Squeak. Slap.
Elementary Outbreak
Story & Illustration // Ashley Franklin
* * *
My alarm goes off; it’s 5:30 am. It’s time to get up, shower, and get myself ready; now it’s time to head to school. I pull my keys out and unlock the door; go into the classroom, set my things down beside my desk, check a few emails, listen to voicemails, and prepare for our morning lesson. The first bell rings; I stand in the hall by the door waiting for the second bell to ring as students walk down the hallway going to their homerooms.
‘Is that Mr. Pine, I thought he was out for the week. He doesn’t look good. I hope whatever he has isn’t serious or contagious. That’s the last thing I need…’
“Hi, Addison! Hi, Josh! Good morning class!”
As I sit down at my desk, I notice quite a few students are missing from class.
“Take your history books out and turn to page 364.”
The bell rings, it’s time for lunch. The screeching pierces my ears as the chairs scrape across the floor. The students stand, form a line, and head towards the cafeteria for lunch. Once in there, I realize more than half of the lunchroom is empty; as I’m leaving, Mrs. Martinez stops me.
“Have you seen Mr. Pine? He’s not looking too well, and I had five more students absent today,” she says.
“I had four students out today myself,” I tell her.
“I saw Susan Hallaway in the hall on my way down here. She was having a coughing fit like Mr. Pine had the other day. She coughed up, what at first, I assumed was blood, only it wasn’t. It was dark and thick, almost like tar. She left about twenty minutes ago.” Mrs. Martinez says.
“I hope it’s nothing serious! I’m going to head to the lounge and get something to eat. I’ll see you later.”
Leaving the cafeteria, I hear several more students coughing, as Addison runs past me towards the bathroom. I decide to follow her and notice another student choking, as Mr. Richards pats his back.
“Addison? Is everything, okay?!” I called out.
I walked past the first stall; I can still hear her coughing, then suddenly nothing. I open up the next stall, and another until I reach the last. I slowly push open the final stall door.
“I’m going to open the door!” I say.
As I open it, Addison turns towards me, her eyes blood red, and thick black tar dripping from her mouth. She lunges at me and tries to bite me! I try to hold her back, but her strength was undeniably stronger! I push her off of me, knocking her into the toilet bowl, as black pours from her split head. Getting back to my feet, I make a run for the door! When turning the corner; I see Mr. Richards still in the hall; as I run to him, the student bites his arm!
“Ahhh...” He screams with agony!
I run to the first classroom I come across, looking in before opening the door, but to my horror, I see five students attacking Miss Mead!
“No, please, no,” she beggingly cries!
The children hoard around her with the same blood-red eyes and tar-like substance dripping from their mouths, as the others had. The children take her to the ground. I back away from the door slowly when the boy who is attacking Mr. Richards turns his attention to me.
I run, within inches past him back to the cafeteria. Opening the doors, only to discover the staff, and some of the students are attacking what I can only assume are the only un-infected — my mind was racing with fear.
I quickly began to escape the other way, knocking the boy to the ground as I see what’s left of Mr. Richards’ body twitching.
‘Oh my god, can this be happening!?...’
My heart is pounding; I feel like it’s about to burst out of my chest.
Mr. Richards stands up, as the black tar-like substance drips from his mouth, he’s now charging at me! Mouth covered with this thick fluid that was once his blood. I run out of the building, and without a thought, I grab the bench, wedging it in front of the door! I turn my eyes to the road as smoke fills the air, I hear the screams from up the street, tires screech across the way and with a crashing; fires blaze as we end, and the apocalypse is upon us.
A Visit From The Milk Lady
Story // Jarrett Mazza
* * *
“DRINK YOUR MILK EVERY DAY and you’ll grow up to be a strong, healthy boy!�
�
A mother’s advice is always the best advice, or so Bradley was told repeatedly by his parents.
“But I don’t wanna drink my milk!” he cried, giving his mom a pouty face, the kind that spoiled boys give when they have trouble following the rules given by their parents.
“Yes, you do,” replied Bradley’s mother, standing in the kitchen in an apron and leaving it tied around her plump body. “All young boys must drink their milk!”
“No!” said the boy, Bradley, slapping his mother’s hand away from his cheeks. “I don’t wanna!”
His mother sighed, stepped away from the table, and glared.
For a moment, Bradley thought she was going to let him just be. She was going to let him drink his third cup of soda with dinner. However, dinner was to be eaten with milk, not with carbonated sugar water, and if Bradley refused, his mother would get angry, and Bradley would show his anger by gritting his teeth and flexing his freckled his face and yelling,
“Get that disgusting milk out of my face!”
His mother sighed, disappointed by her son’s behavior, and then walked away. If she couldn’t convince him this way, she would find another.
“You know,” she said before dropping his unfinished glass into the sink, “what happens to boys that don’t drink their milk, the Milk Lady comes and teaches them all a lesson. Remember the story.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bradley said. “Whatever.”
He waved his hand because he had heard the story so many times before, the one about the so-called Milk Lady who would come to the houses of children that refused to drink their milk and eat their vegetables. When such occurred, the Milk Lady was said to creep into the kids’ bedrooms while they were asleep and afterwards, throttle their little necks, and force them to consume their nutritious drinks. The story was told so often to fussy children. Yet, this never had much of an effect on Bradley because he rarely believed that a woman, whose outfit consisted of a plump dress, red apron and holding a cane were not qualities that frightened him, not even in the slightest.
It had been a whole month since he consumed a single vegetable, fruit, or, for that matter, a glass of grimy milk. His plan for dodging his duties as a growing boy had been rather effective. Neither his mother nor his father could get him to eat. He was in his bedroom later in the evening, sitting on his bed, and using his computer to browse the internet. He was watching videos and looking at his friends’ social media pages, and then stopping when he heard a knocking at his window.
He stopped and brought his hands down to his lap.
“Hello?”
He headed to the sill. Every once and a while, an insect would fly into the glass and make a little ticking sound. Bradley would, for the most part ignore the noise, and he tried to do that now, pretend like there wasn’t anything outside that frightened him. Besides, he found himself far too preoccupied with what he was doing to notice anything happening there. He was immune to the noises and did his best to ignore them, even putting his headphones on while watching yet another foolish prank video.
“Haha,” he laughed, and then stopped because the noises were beginning to sound more and more erratic, as if these continuous ticks were deliberate. The strangeness of their consistency was causing Bradley to think scary thoughts. Whenever there was an even an ounce of silence, a fragment of emptiness, that’s when the sounds from the window would intrude.
Bradley sighed with frustration.
Even with his headphones over his ears, he was unable to escape the sound.
“What the…”
He stomped up to the window, grabbed the curtains, and whipped them open. Outside he saw and heard nothing; not a single sign of anyone or anything that would explain these inexplicable bursts that were now disrupting him. He gasped at the emptiness, tsked, and then leaned back on his foot, rotated as if about to turn, and proceeded back to his mattress.
“Stupid little bugs,” he said as he scoffed.
His hands, still around the curtains, and his heart still continuing to pound in his chest. As he turned around, rather than looking at his computer, he instead was staring at two big cartons of milk that were resting on his bed.
“What the…”
Before he could finish, the ticks echoed, and were now tapping against the floor and were followed by a shallow, throaty grunt.
“Hello, boy,” said the snaring, creepy voice.
Bradley felt a shudder shoot across his boyish chest, and it was then that his hands started really tremble. He turned around, slowly, carefully, and then he was face-to-face with a hunched woman, holding a cane, wearing an apron, and with a haggard, rotting face, and drool dripping from her lips, and eyes red as a mad dog’s.
“You didn’t drink your milk,” the lady said as she crept forward.
Her hand shot up and she walloped Bradley in the head with her cane.
“You should’ve listened to your mother,” snapped The Milk Lady, standing before Bradley and continuing to pop him in his cranium. “You should…have…drunk…your…milk!”
“No,” Bradley cried, limping back, and breaking out in a cold sweat. “You’re not real,” he said. “You can’t be!”
After a few hits to the head, he started crying, and felt sick from the encounter, an encounter that, despite the pain and fear that it caused, also made him think that it couldn’t be real. He must’ve been dreaming.
“Oh,” said The Milk Lady, “I most assuredly…am.”
She moved right up against Bradley, her face inches from his and her stench filling Bradley’s nostrils like those bad smells he experienced in the boy’s bathroom.
“I’m not, you say?”
The Milk Lady grabbed milk off the bed and pushed Bradley down into his chair.
“Drink…your…milk!”
She spoke with heavy breaths between her words, looped the handle of her cane around Bradley’s neck, and pulled him until he slid across the floor and came to the edge of his mattress.
“Drink your milk!”
“No,” begged Bradley.
“Drink!”
Bradley wiggled his body in an attempt to squirm away, but The Milk Lady pinched his nostrils so his mouth would open and then started ploughing the white liquid into his gaping trap. Bradley shook his head side-to-side, trying to fight off what he could, even kicking his legs, jerking his arms in a vicious tantrum. But, no matter how hard he tried to push, the more the Milk Lady poured the milk down.
“Drink!” she screamed.
Soon, Bradley could feel the cool liquid dripping down his face, soaking his pajama shirt, and dampening his lap.
“Get away from me!”
“Drink your milk!”
He could feel the liquid in his mouth and then, just when he was about to kick the crazy Milk Lady, his eyes popped, and he was now back on his chair, alone.
“Uh,” he said, relieved after seeing that the Milk Lady was gone.
He ran his shaking hands to his chest, picked himself up, and stared.
“What…I…”
Soon after he had his little…dream, the door to his bedroom opened, and his mother was standing there, staring at her son as he sat all panicked and appearing glossy because of how much he sweat.
“What is it, Bradley? Are you…are you okay?”
“Mom?”
“Yeah, it’s mom,” she said as she walked into her bedroom.
Bradley, his heart still racing, leapt into his mother’s arms, and hugged her as tightly as he could.
“My God, sweetie,” she said, still holding on, “what…what happened?”
“Nothing,” he said as he looked into his mother’s eyes and found him smacking his lips together. “It’s okay. It’s all back to normal now.”
“Bradley…you sure you’re…you’re okay?”
She pulled him away and he suddenly began smacking his lips together, licking the inside of his mouth and craving something to drink.
“Are you…thirsty?” asked his
mother.
Bradley’s eyes widened and he blinked.
“Yeah,” he said, “I really am. And I know what I want too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” replied Bradley’s mother. “Soda pop,” he said, disappointed. “I know.”
“No,” Bradley’s voice went high, and he jumped as his hands slipped from around his mother’s shoulders and moved to her hands.
He knew what he wanted now, and he didn’t tell his mother what it was. He just shuffled down the steps, opened his fridge, grabbed a fresh carton of ice-cold milk, and filled as many glasses as he could, and drank, and drank, and drank, until every last drop was gone. He didn’t mind the taste. In fact, he liked it more than he thought he would.
Mommy’s Calling
Story // Stephen Coghlan
* * *
Can you hear it?
Mommy’s calling.
She wants you to come downstairs,
Help her out,
Do your chores.
She calls again
“Can you hurry up please?
Mommy needs help now!”
You sigh,
Stand up,
Walk into the hall,
Mommy’s loud, getting louder,
Needing you now.
But, Mommy’s also at her bedroom door, beckoning you inside.
“I hear it too,” Upstairs Mommy whispers, terrified. “Hide with me, please!”
Downstairs Mommy begs for help.
Who do you choose?
Don’t Go Into the House
Story // Edward Ahern
Illustration // David M. Hoenig
* * *
