Black Rainbow

by Scott Savino

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw something crawling out of the tea mug. She lifted it up and held the phone over it. It was filled with mud and fat red worms. She set it down carefully and looked at Daru.

  “One of us needs to keep our eyes on the other at all times.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We need to go find my parents,” Willa said. “We have to get out of the house.”

  Daru nodded.

  The two of them stood up, facing each other slightly. As they walked toward the door one of the sconces flickered on.

  “Willa. Look,” Daru pointed behind her.

  She turned to look and found her reflection in the hallway mirror. Her face was slowly melting as her features seamlessly shifted into a sinister, masculine expression. Her reflection’s mouth twisted upwards, revealing the back rows of teeth. One hand—not her own—waved at her with crooked black fingers.

  Terrified, she glanced back over to Daru, but Daru was gone.

  Down the hallway, standing in the living room, was a shadowy figure well over six feet tall. Its head was round, but misshapen like a scarecrow’s. It was tilted to the side, as if its thin little neck didn’t have the strength to hold it up. It rolled its head forward from shoulder to shoulder, and a cacophony of cracks echoed down the hallway. Then, flinging its arms backwards, it raced towards her.

  Willa screamed and sprinted out of the house.

  She could hear the monster lumbering closer.

  She squeezed her eyes shut as tight as she could.

  When she reopened them it was daylight again and she fell face first onto the ground. Clumps of dirt sprayed into her eyes and she cried out in pain, but didn’t close them. She forced them to stay open as her fingers carefully combed through her lashes, removing the dirt as strained tears flushed out the debris. She looked back toward the house and heard a blood curdling scream.

  “Daru!”

  Keeping her eyes open, she burst in through the front door and raced to her parents’ office. She could hear Daru screaming upstairs.

  “Hang on, Daru!”

  She frantically rummaged around the office until she found a roll of tape and used a few strips to tape her eyes open.

  As for self defense, she could only locate a silver letter opener laying on her dad’s desk. Feeling as prepared as she could be, she charged up the stairs. Her vision blurred and her eyes felt so dry they seemed to shrivel up inside of her skull, but she was determined to help Daru.

  Throwing open the door of her bedroom, she saw Daru curled up defensively in the corner. She was desperately grabbing objects from the bookshelves and whipping them at a strange little creature crawling toward her. It resembled a cross between a red panda, a lemur, and, with the giant horns on its head, a ram. Its mouth opened like a Venus flytrap, peeling backwards from its lips, exposing rows of glistening, piercing fangs. Its wide black pupils vanished, showing only the whites.

  The monster turned to face Willa, bouncing back and forth on its haunches.

  “Daru, can you hear me? Daru!” Willa screamed, but Daru wouldn’t respond.

  The creature pounced, latching onto Willa’s calf and sinking in its teeth. She could hear the pop of her bone snapping in half and she howled in pain before stabbing at the monster with the letter opener to free herself. It screeched and recoiled, slinking back towards the edge of the room where its head retracted and its mouth closed in a sinister smile. It didn’t move.

  Suddenly Daru staggered to her feet, eyes wide with fear. She held a textbook over her head and approached Willa, knees shaking.

  “Daru! Daru, it’s me!” Willa screamed. “Can’t you see me?”

  She peeled the tape off her face and squeezed her eyes shut. When she reopened them, Daru recognized her.

  “Willa,” she whispered, throwing the book to the side. She crouched down beside her bloody leg. “Oh my God, what happened?”

  “I took my eyes off of you,” Willa whispered, sobbing. “And you didn’t see me. You couldn’t see it was me.”

  They looked back towards the wall. Gone was the smaller monster. In its place was its hulking twin. Blood gushed from the stab wounds Willa inflicted.

  Daru helped Willa up from the floor and together they fled the room, hobbling down the stairs. The monster roared and chased after them, crawling over the wall, skidding down the stair rails.

  “When we get out the front door, close your eyes,” Willa cried out.

  Just as they crossed the threshold, they collapsed to the ground, squeezing their eyes shut. Once they opened them, they were back in the daylight. The smaller version of the monster scuttled after them, extending its jaws as it came in for another bite.

  The crack of a gun sounded behind them and two shots were fired directly into its mouth. The girls screamed and covered their ears, watching as it went down. Willa’s mother scrambled forward with an elongated silver canister, and scooped the monster inside before slamming the lid shut. Her father lowered his revolver and leaned to the side to scratch Buster’s ears.

  “He came to find us,” her father explained. “He must have run out the doggy door.”

  “Good boy, Buster,” Willa said breathlessly, then winced in pain and choked back a sob. Her leg was a mangled mess.

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” her mother whispered, horrified. She withdrew her cell phone from her pocket and promptly dialed 911. As she spoke to the operator, she kept her combat boot on the lid of the canister, which was rattling in place. Daru removed her jacket from her shoulders and tied it around Willa’s leg, starting to apply pressure to her bleeding wounds.

  “What the hell is that thing, Mr. Chester,” Daru asked. She jumped when the canister moved again. “And why isn’t it dead?”

  Her father crouched down beside Willa and wiped the tears from her cheek with his thumb.

  “That is a yaw,” he explained. “It’s a monster that distorts its prey’s perception of reality. Nasty thing. Tough to kill. When Willa said she saw a cabin and a green moon, we figured it had to be some sort of mind-melding monster. Yaws can only mimic a human’s perception of reality, so the strange visions made sense.” He rubbed his daughter’s shoulder and smiled apologetically at Daru. “I’m so sorry you ladies had to go through all of this.”

  Willa glanced at the canister. “It can’t hurt us now, can it? Now that it’s in the canister?”

  He shook his head. “No. The yaw’s mind bending powers are at its strongest when it’s alone. And all those people who went missing must have been alone when it found them.”

  Willa wiped tears from her eyes. “And that thing ate them, didn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so,” her father said solemnly. “But I’m so glad that the two of you are safe.”

  Within just a few minutes, the ambulance arrived with police close behind. Willa was carefully moved to the ambulance and had an IV inserted. As the cops interacted with Willa’s parents, Daru climbed into the ambulance with her, holding her hand.

  “So, I know this may not be the right time to ask, but do you want to go out? Like, on an official date?”

  “Once my leg gets fixed up you mean?” Willa grinned.

  “Yeah,” Daru said, smiling. “As soon as you’re ready I want to take you out to dinner. Doesn’t have to be anything fancy. In fact, it can’t be. I can only afford pizza.”

  Willa giggled. “Pizza sounds perfect.”

  Eight Little Lies

  AMANDA CYBE

  “LOVE IS ABOUT TRUST,” EMILY told me. “Do you trust me?”

  We curled together on soft bed sheets, our limbs becoming blankets to shield us from February’s midwinter bite. Candles illuminated the matchbox room, scenting it with vanilla and honeysuckle. Unthinking, I ran my finger along a tattoo that trailed its way around Emily’s arm, thin beads of ivy forming an intricate lattice of skin and ink.

  “I love you,” I said without consideration.

  “That’s not what I asked,” she said, her
voice caramel smooth. “I asked if you trust me.”

  I surveyed the look she gave me, drowning for a moment in the chestnut depths.

  She blinked, waiting.

  “You’re serious?”

  She nodded, little cascades of her hair bristling. The biting wind outside bellowed. I glanced towards the window then back to Emily. Her hand touched my shoulder. My hesitation spoke to her, stronger than words.

  I had problems with trust. That baggage weighed heavily around my neck: my own personal millstone. I tried as best as I could not to pass it on to her, so in response I pressed a smile, an action that came readily in her presence.

  “Let’s play a game,” she said.

  I leaned closer, feeling her breath against my skin. “A naughty game?” I asked, my fingers velvet on her thigh.

  “An honest one, Carly.”

  I slid my head back, unsure of her words. After so many months together, games came to us easily. Hide and seek among the towering stacks of the university library became a game of hushed and eager lovemaking while dodging the eyes of hungover students. Only last Saturday we had raced each other along the chilly seafront, beating back the cold with our heavy breaths before finally collapsing in each other’s arms by the moldering ruins of the pier.

  I inhaled, almost tasting her.

  “I’m game,” I said.

  Emily looked at me. “It’s an easy game. It’s called Eight Little Lies.”

  “Eight little lies,” I echoed.

  “We all tell them,” she explained, rolling her lips against the nape of my neck and nuzzling gently. “Little things to make ourselves seem better than we are. A lie we tell people, or tell ourselves.”

  “And you want me to start?”

  With a tender little smile and a glimmer of candlelight in her eyes she said, “I’ll start.”

  Gradually and with hesitating concern, Emily touched her necklace. Fingertips brushed the small pendant that hung there, little silver wings forming the impression of a soaring angel. “I told you this was my grandmother’s?” she asked. I nodded in response. “It isn’t. I bought it from a stall in town last year.”

  “Why?”

  Coyness stroked her features. “I liked it. But I wanted to give it a story, wanted to make it sound important. But it isn’t.” She let her fingers drop, releasing the pendant. “That’s a little lie. Do you understand how the game works?”

  I nodded and exhaled, considering my reply, but nothing came readily to mind; my thoughts remained a silent void. “What should I say?”

  “Anything,” Emily insisted. “Anything at all. It’s just a game.”

  “Do you remember how we first met,” I asked, my voice heavy with sudden nerves.

  “At the student union,” she said. “You were drunk. I was trying to read. You came over from the bar and asked if you could sit with me.”

  A lump grew in my throat and sat there tightly. “That wasn’t the first time I’d seen you. I’d noticed you before. I’d actually wanted to talk to you for a while before I worked up the courage to do it. I was nervous and didn’t even know if you were into other girls, so that’s why I’d had a few drinks. To work up the courage.”

  “A few? As I remember you’d had about seven.”

  “That’s how nervous I was to talk to you.” I laughed then, and like a cool breeze on a hot summer night, so did Emily. Her laughter got caught in the fire of my own and soon we were both alight with it, giggling like school girls. Her face, I thought, became illuminated with her smile.

  “Okay,” I said when I’d finally caught my breath. “Your turn.”

  Emily nodded, her next truth all ready to go. “I never knew my parents. Not my real ones. I was raised by my aunt. We lived far off in the forest. She took care of my schooling and I didn’t have many friends.”

  “Wasn’t it lonely?”

  “No, Aunt Anansi had everything I needed. She took good care of me.” She paused, and kissed me before playfully nipping at the skin of my chest. “Your turn,” she said with a grin.

  I looked down at her. She looked so frail in my arms, a spindly bundle of long limbs and dark eyes. I felt a yearning, gaping urge to tell her more.

  “When I was a child I ran away from home. Stayed away for three nights hiding in an old warehouse at the docks.”

  Emily stared at me. “Why?”

  “I can’t remember,” I lied, hoping it wouldn’t count against me in her little game. I didn’t want to tell her it had been over some trivial argument with my father. Did I want to tell Emily how much I hated my father, or that he was the only person in my entire life I hadn’t come out to? I had already opened one door by confessing to her about how hard it had been for me to approach her in the first place, but maybe this step was too much. “It was a long time ago,” I added dismissively.

  Nodding, Emily shifted, letting her weight slide to her side. “My turn?”

  I bobbed my head.

  “My aunt basically raised me,” she said. “Taught me everything I know. How to cook, how to knit, how to hunt.”

  “You hunt,” I asked. The idea sounded foreign to me.

  But Emily nodded. “Grew up in the forest, remember?”

  I thought, yes, it makes sense. It was sensible that, growing up in a forest, Emily would have had to learn how to hunt. Still, the idea seemed so different, so unlike the small, fragile, calm-spirited girl who sat beside me. I pushed away the thoughts—the silly images of red-coated lords and ladies on horseback pursuing panic-stricken foxes—and tried to imagine Emily. I tried to picture her hunched over a deer, a rifle resting against her slender shoulders, a proud smile on her lips as she posed for a photograph. Still, the image I’d drawn didn’t quite feel right.

  “It’s your turn.” The sound of her voice drew me back from my introspection.

  I sighed and admitted, “I don’t know what to say.”

  Her expression was chiding. “Come on. Try one more.”

  But I didn’t want to play anymore. “I don’t like this game.”

  Emily pulled back slightly. “Are you afraid?”

  Something about her voice made the lump in my throat swell a little. “No,” I lied, and closed my eyes. That was the second time I’d lied during this game and I felt a pang of guilt deep inside me. “Okay. One more, but then we stop. Agreed?”

  She nodded.

  My lips pressed tight, and in a voice that belied my hesitation, I said, “That scar on my shoulder?” Emily nodded and I continued. “It was a tattoo.”

  “Really?” Her hair slid back in a wave as a laugh broke on her shore. “What kind was it?”

  “It was stupid,” I said as I turned my gaze. “It doesn’t matter.” I wasn’t sure what thought hung heaviest in my mind; that she would think me young and wild for getting a tattoo in the first place, or that I had been ashamed enough of it to later have it removed.

  For a moment, her look grew stern. It was an expression she donned when seriousness was called for, when the time for joking had fallen to the side.

  “Tell me.”

  I didn’t look up. A small doubt crossed my mind. Had I offended her? I regretted my decision not to tell her. Feeling guilty, I forced out my answer.