Once Upon A Dystopia: An Anthology of Twisted Fairy Tales and Fractured Folklore

by Heather Carson

  He sat sloppy, one leg thrown over the side of the chair and one arm tucked behind his head, pushing the headrest and his hat lopsided. His vibrant blond hair was actually combed today, but the ends were still straggly where they rested upon his shoulders.

  His grin, however, was as mischievous as ever.

  Peter’s smile was equal parts boyish and something sharper, something that made my heart pound whenever I saw it. Not in an unpleasant way but a lilting lurch that made it hard to meet his green eyes and impossible not to feel like everything I did was wrong.

  Today was no different and when he saw us enter, he waved lazily. My cheeks burned and I slipped behind Simon, my toes nudged against his heel three times before we both stopped at an empty table.

  “Cal,” Simon said, leaning towards me. “Does he look weird today to you?”

  I shrugged, glancing at Peter too quickly to really take him in. “No?”

  He looked the same he always did. Young, sprite-like, and full of energy even as he sat motionless. I risked another glance and came to the same conclusion. Peter was the kind of person who could move in seconds, and he always looked ready to do so.

  Simon rubbed his eyes and then squinted, lips curling. Like he was trying to see through thick glass. I frowned and elbowed him, motioning for him to sit down. He lagged behind a second and then collapsed with a sigh.

  “Maybe I’m going blind.”

  “You are not going blind,” I flicked his ear and then sat down as well. “You’re still sleepy.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  I ignored the way that sounded like an appeasement. Tucking my boot heels against the edge of the table, I set my chin on my knees and studied the gaggle of children yelling and pushing each other around on the floor. So carefree. And dirty.

  I didn’t envy Peter’s close proximity to them but he watched them with a small smirk.

  Simon rubbed his eyes and muttered unintelligibly. I brushed my hair out of my face and followed his gaze to Peter. He didn’t look different, but he did look odd. Off. I’d say weary if it wasn’t for the fact that I’d never seen Peter tired.

  Sometimes, when Peter didn’t think anyone was looking, he looked old. Not just older than me but aged. Like he’d seen too much and all of it resided behind his eyes until the green of them was something hard to look at. The depth in them was too much. Disturbing.

  Today, I noticed it more intensely and my stomach dropped.

  “Boys!” Peter’s voice rang out over the chatter and I jumped, nearly smacking myself in the face. Simon squeezed my elbow and I set my hands flat against the table. My nerves were weak, always had been, and right now I felt jumpy.

  It was his eyes. They weren’t just aged. They were ancient.

  Suddenly, a terrifying thought slammed so hard through me I wanted to throw up. I clenched the edge of the table until my fingers burned. Sweat dotted my forehead.

  “I need help. Get to go outside with this one, so bigger kids only please,” Peter said, standing up to better project his voice over the grunts of a group of four or five ten-year-olds wrestling. “Any volunteers?”

  Going outside was rare. The last time he’d ask was over six months ago, and it hadn’t ended well. I was surprised he offered it now. But not as surprised to see hands get raised with abandon, shouts echoing.

  “How long has Peter been here?” I asked, whispering against Simon’s ear.

  He fidgeted, his shoulder rising to combat the hiss of my voice. “I dunno, fifteen years? He’s fifteen years old.”

  I huffed, “But wasn’t he fifteen last year?”

  Simon’s mouth opened and then closed. And then opened and then closed. I swallowed hard, grabbing onto his wrist to stop my hands from shaking. How had I never noticed it before? All the signs were right there. Had I ever seen Peter look any different? Ever seen him grow an inch? He’d looked the same from the time I arrived at six years old to now.

  The impossible stared me in the face and made my stomach hurt. My heart raced alongside the whirring thoughts of my brain. There was no way…and yet...

  “How long has he been fifteen?” I asked.

  Simon elbowed me, hard. “Stop. Stop. We’ll talk about it later. Not right now.”

  The fact that he didn’t contradict me made my heart thud harder. My hands gyrated against the tablecloth, jerking it up in small wrinkles. Simon placed his hand over one of mine, his fingers tight against my knuckles.

  How had no one noticed?

  And more importantly, how did he do it? What did it mean?

  “Okay, I need two more,” Peter called, jumping over the still twirling mess of wrestling kids. They didn’t seem to notice.

  I jerked my hand in the air, the one Simon still had a hold of.

  “Callie!” he hissed.

  Peter’s smile was wide and inviting. “Perfect.”

  ***

  The outside world had descended into chaos not long after my birth, or so the story went. The city had eaten itself up, riots and violence strewn through it for reasons no kids could recall and the few adults had either been afraid to tell us or couldn’t agree on what was wrong. All we knew for certain was that the world was dangerous and we were the lucky ones.

  Peter and the Second Star Hotel was the only place that existed that didn’t use kids up and spit them out dry. The one spot we could exist as utterly free as anyone could be and as children should be.

  Or so Peter said.

  The idea of going outside never appealed to me. Why would it? We had everything we wanted in the Hotel. But with the night falling around us, darkening the halls, I felt that feeling even stronger. I didn’t want to go outside.

  Something about the way Peter bounced and skipped up the stairs set my nerves on edge.

  Following him and the two other kids that had volunteered, Morgan and Jacob, up the stairs to the roof did nothing to sate the turmoil in my gut. I held onto Simon’s hand so tightly I wasn’t sure he had any circulation, but I couldn’t let go and he didn’t make me.

  “What are we doing?” I asked, glad to hear my voice stay steady.

  Peter flashed a wide smile, but it slanted sharply. “What else? Something fun.”

  There’d been a time that would’ve made me have the same reaction that Morgan and Jacob did, giggling and giddy. Something fun and the outside world? But now, with the question still burning through my brain, it just made bile rise to the back of my throat.

  “Awesome,” Simon said, sounding the same way he always did. Cool and collected.

  Peter pushed the rooftop door open. The outside air rushed in, blowing through all of us with a sharp chill. My teeth clanked shut and I winced, expecting a rancid sweet smell reminiscent of old meat. The scent I associated with decay.

  The air from outside was the opposite. Clean, fresh, and with a hint of something that reminded me of peppermint.

  The night sky was black. Thick and shadow-filled, I couldn’t see anything as I waited for my eyes to adjust. Spots of light from the moon and stars and heavy smearing shadow was all I could make out. Peter’s voice and Simon’s tug helped me up the last step and out onto the roof.

  “Let me say, thank you, children. This is never easy.”

  Something in his voice grabbed my heart and stopped it cold. The thing I’d been wondering, I was about to find out. I could feel it in my bones. For one desperate second, I thought about never opening my eyes again. Ignoring all of it.

  “What is?” Simon asked, sounding as wary as I felt.

  I blinked hard and my eyes finally adjusted to the faint moonlit night. Peter stood in front of us and in his hand, he held a long, flat, shining blade.

  I backed up, jerking Simon with me.

  The closed rooftop door handle punched my back.

  Peter’s smile was bright, and yet subdued. “I know. I know how it looks, but I will not grow up.” He stomped his foot and gestured with the blade to the city stretched out across the horizon. “I will not end up
out there! One of those mindless hungry things. This place is mine and always will be!”

  His shouting was loud, always was, hard and resonant and demanding. It froze me to the spot and froze my breath in my lungs. His face reddened. The beginnings of his legendary temper. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

  Peter wasn’t our savior.

  “So, you’re going to kill us?” Simon asked, nudging himself in front of me.

  “No,” Peter said, his head jerking back. “No. I mean, it happens sometimes. But I don’t mean too!” He lurched forward and the four of us jumped backwards, lumping together. “It’s always an accident. Always! I just need your blood. That’s it! Nothing awful, I promise.”

  He sounded like Joseph with the confetti. Like he announced something funny and couldn’t understand how we didn’t get it. Like he spoke about a joke, a prank gone wrong, instead of stealing our blood.

  “I swear, it’ll be fine. You won’t feel a thing,” Peter said, voice sliding on a whine. He pouted and his bottom lip poked out petulantly. “Plenty of the others don’t even remember.”

  The others. Blood. My stomach fell to my boots and ice curdled in my veins.

  “You’re a vampire,” I said.

  Peter sighed, throwing his head back to glare at the moon. “I hate that word. Don’t say it. Hear me? Don’t say it again!” He stomped his foot once more. “I have to do this! Don’t you understand! To keep this place open for kids, I need to be here!”

  “Because without us, you’ll die.” Simon’s voice was shaky.

  Peter grimaced. “No, no. I can’t die. This is necessary.”

  “Peter,” I said, scrambling for something. For words to put to the plea burning my gums. I had to do something, say something, because he was scaring me.

  “This is my fun. Don’t you realize that?” Peter said, peevish and with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you want me to have my fun? I let you have yours.”

  Simon charged. He stood next to me one moment and the next he was throwing a fist that connected with Peter’s chin. I yelped, lungs too strangled to scream. Peter tossed him back effortlessly with a snarl.

  The agedness I’d seen before flourished beneath the moonlight. Peter stood braced, angry, and monstrous. Something old and ancient made childish through lack of progress. I realized then that all the kids he claimed to care for were there for one reason. To keep him the same as always. Unchanged and young.

  Simon grabbed me by the arm. I jerked my arm free and raced forward, knowing that Peter wouldn’t expect it from quiet and unassuming Callie. My hands wrapped around the hilt of the blade, right next to Peter’s impossibly cold hands.

  He snarled, shocked, and I smacked my head against his nose.

  Warm blood gushed over my forehead and I gasped. Simon jerked me back by my collar, choking me. Morgan and Jacob were screaming and pounding on the door. It rattled in the door frame, sounding like a rock thrown across gravel.

  “Help! Help!”

  I knew no help would come.

  Peter roared deep and angry, inhumanly. The blade----I knew it had a real name, it was as long as my forearm but I couldn’t remember it---was still in my hand. Peter seemed caught between watching us scream for help and lunging for us, eyes glittering and body tensed. But I knew what I had to do.

  I took the blade and jammed it into his chest.

  I screamed when I let go, stumbling backwards into Simon’s arms. Peter looked down at the blade sunk deep in his middle and laughed.

  It was a bone-curdling sound, deep and throaty. The kind of laugh someone gave when they thought of something other people didn’t. Like he knew more than we did.

  Peter smiled wide and sharp and yanked the blade from his chest.

  Morgan and Jacob tried to open the door, scrambling against each other and screaming. I couldn’t make out what they said over the pounding of my heart and the sound of Simon’s staggered breathing.

  The Second Star Hotel and Peter had never been a sanctuary. The world was dead and we were living on borrowed time.

  Peter’s time.

  Simon growled low under his breath and then launched himself at Peter. They fumbled over the blade, both warring for control of it and I stood there frozen. Thinking, stunned, scared.

  Peter used us? Raised us to slaughter when he needed to? Had any kid ever left the Hotel? Or were they all part of him now?

  The fear warped into anger and then I was beside Simon, slapping and scratching whatever I could reach. Handfuls of Peter’s hair tangled around my fingers. He tore the front of my shirt and then screamed when Morgan and Jacob entered the fray.

  As we four clobbered him down, shouting nonsense full of rage and betrayal, Simon wrangled control of the sword.

  “Do it Simon!” I shouted, motioning to Peter's head. “Hurry!”

  The Lost Boys were Peter’s. That’s how the story went and how it was told. But what made us Lost?

  Simon flung the sword above his head. I wanted to close my eyes but didn’t.

  The Lost Boys takeover of the Second Star Hotel started and ended with the swing of a blade and the rush of blood.

  Haleigh has been a longtime lover of words, coffee, and dogs. She can be found in Northeastern Oklahoma dreaming about her next story. You can find her on Twitter @HaleighBaker7

  HOOD: A Grindhouse Robin Hood Tale

  By Jared K Chapman

  Fat pink maggots wriggled, and bulbous black flies buzzed around the rotted hams at the base of the welcome sign on the outskirts of town. Homeless hands hunted through the decay while covering their nostrils and mouths as best they could, so not to add to the myriad puddles of vomit, in hopes of discovering an elusive pristine canned ham to quench their everlasting hunger. The once beautifully colored sign above, now dented from years of cans and hams bashing into it, bore a spray-painted red R over the N.

  WELCOME TO ROTTINGHAM.

  Beyond the makeshift tents of homeless people scattered around the sign were the homes of Huntington Court. Signs littered the small suburban development with the face of real estate developer, Johnson King, now Mayor King. JOHNSON KING WILL MAKE THIS HOUSE YOUR VERY OWN KINGDOM. RE-ELECT YOUR FAVORITE MAYOR, JOHNSON KING. Either way, his face was selling you something.

  Brunette sisters, Robin and Randi Locke, dressed in their high school cheerleader uniforms with backpacks slung over their shoulders and bursting with books, raced one another home. Robin wore the sleeveless varsity uniform, while her sister wore the more modest frosh-soph version.

  "Another one?" Randi commented, pointing to a FOR SALE sign with Mayor King's face upon it. "I think everyone's moved out now."

  "Everyone but us," Robin said, skipping toward their two-story home in the center of a cul-de-sac, the only one without a sign.

  Robin reached the door first and rushed inside, dropping her backpack by a table in the entryway. The click-clack of her father's fingers pecking at the computer keys echoed off the walls and the marble floor of the halls and entryway. As she followed the sound to her father's office, a beeping emanated from the kitchen.

  "That's dinner!" her father shouted from the office. "Please take care of it. I'm finishing up some work."

  "Okay, Dad," Robin replied, spinning on her heels. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Randi sneaking inside the front door. "Dinner's ready. Set the table."

  Randi plopped her backpack down in a huff and stomped toward the kitchen.

  Just as they set the table and were ready to serve, their forty-something widowed father, Roland, joined them, carrying a stack of papers and file folders. He placed them on the table next to his seat, patting them as he gazed distractedly at the large ham at the center of the table. Robin sliced through it, allowing the honeyed-ham aroma to escape with the steam within. Randi licked her lips as her sister placed a slab onto her plate. Robin snapped her fingers at her father when his plate didn't appear next. He shuttered and passed her the plate with a pensive smile.

  "Hard day, Dad?"
she asked.

  He nodded, withdrawing the plate. Then, with a broad smile, he reached his hands out to his girls. They each grabbed one and then crossed the table to hold each other's hands before bowing their heads.

  "Please bless this meal, for we know not when we may have another. Please bless this house, for we know not when we may be uncovered. Please bless this family, for we know not when we may again be with one another. Amen."

  "Amen," the girls repeated in unison, dropping their hands and stabbing the meal with their knives and forks.

  Roland only stared at the paperwork next to him.

  "What is it?" Robin asked, noticing her father's lack of appetite.

  "Nothing, love. My job is overwhelming me right now. That's all."

  "You're a great man, Daddy," Randi said, placing her hand on top of his. "It takes someone strong to deal with the low-lives and druggies you have to deal with every day."