FREE SHORT STORY - "The Spoils" by Mark Anthony Smith

horror short story

Ned drops to the dust amongst the ruins. He must get his head together. He has to find a new strength amongst this rising despair. It is hard to dig deep in times when all around is shit. The dust covers broken house bricks and broken people. After the wails of sirens, the dust is everywhere. Even in his head.

He drags his palm downwards through a detached, ill-kempt beard. His stilted gaze tries to cut through the rubble. Maggie is still alive. He feels it in the wretched bones. It is hard to focus and plan as another bum materialises from nowhere. It is hard to own anything in these times. His hand feels roughly alien.

The broken figure is not as broken as Ned’s eyes first registered. The stranger grows a foot or more in height as she or he, it is difficult to know, swims into view. That man – it is a man – with the filthy trench coat walks with purpose. Ned thinks he has the watery assurance of Dickens’s Fagan. The stranger’s teeth are rotted. He seems to cut through a different landscape altogether. He looks to be passing through. Perhaps the man has forgotten there’s a war. He may as well be walking through a park as he closes like a crow once flew.

“I can deliver,” says the old man.

“You can fuck off,” Ned replies.

The man whistles through his teeth with that staccato laugh. The laughter that will haunt Ned like a disco song. The man shrugs. His coat is too big for his frame. Ned thinks the dirt is less ingrained in the figure’s face. The gnarled contours soften as Ned’s interest piques. Those tired eyes appear softly limitless.

“Yes. I can deliver. I can find your girl. It’s not so difficult.”

Ned feels panic. He rises from his toppled seat. He tries to look away. This fucker knows too much. There is definitely a catch. He swings round: “What have you done with my daughter? I don’t even know who the fuck you are. Where is she?” He checks for his blade. The steel is colder against his thigh.

“Where is she?”

The bum pulls a deck of cards from the inside of his coat. His finger scrapes something from his tooth. It feels like a sleight of hand. Ned grips his weapon as the man leans in. He mouths, “what would you give?”

Ned drops to his knees. The assured trickster is washing over him. He can barely hear the man’s words. All he can see is his tongue, through his tears, lick over the cracked teeth. The man is hunger. He feeds on Ned’s small hope.

“Then it’s agreed?”

Ned wholeheartedly nods. There are no choices. He can live without his tonsils. A kidney would suffice in these meagre times too. The man holds out a hand. Ned nods again but waivers a seal. He shakes enough already. Time is a slippery thing.

The stranger grows large as he steps back and sweeps. “None of this is yours. Behold!” Ned looks up in confusion. Maggie walks like the man. The levelled streets aren’t hers. She closes like a walk in the park. She smiles, dead. Quite dead. Just as Ned comes alive. He doesn’t see the animated corpse. He only sees his daughter. She’s pleased to see him too.

“Oh my love,” he hugs. He kisses and sobs. “Oh my life! Where have you been?” Maggie giggles and kisses his cheek. Then he joins her in death as the wrong vital is torn. Ned reels as it tears at his heart. In that dying confusion, that rasping catch. The smear: “I didn’t say I was a doctor.”

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About the author

Mark Anthony Smith was born in Hull, East Yorkshire. His writings have appeared in over 30 Small Press and several Horror Anthologies. ‘Keep it inside and other weird tales’, his third book, is published by Red Cape and is available for pre-order.

www.markanthonysmith.com

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