Things to Run Away From Really Fast

02/22/11

Three people sit around a table. Two of them are dead.

The bodies are slumped at awkward angles, twitching. Under their skin, tiny creatures mass and swarm and crawl, and at any moment, the meat-sacks will burst at the seams and the kitchen floor will be flooded with blood and tissues and squirming maggots.

A little girl sits in the third place-setting, quietly finishing her homework.

They play hopscotch on the sidewalk, and they make fun of her. They don't know what she could do to them, what she's about to do. Calling through cracks in the sidewalk, calling up all the little things that crawl.

She doesn't realize that she's raised a hand, fingers stretched out, until another hand is closing over hers and forcing her arm down. She turns and meets the cool stare and raised eyebrows, and knows that the black-clothed child is other, like her.

This "Samael" has a job offer for her, and so she follows.

Sarcophagidae. Scare Factor: 3.