A Horror Anthology

Miles to Go - @JesseSprague

An unrelenting ache pounded just below the stump of Daria's knee, and she absently twisted on the bed to accommodate the phantom pain.

The rain pounded through the gutter outside Daria's window. Little floods spewed in a rhythm from the drainpipe into the loose dirt beside her small cement patio. The trees surrounding her lawn were nothing more than shadows in the blackness.

The house was still brand new. She didn't have curtains for the glass door, leading to the patio and yard from the house's single bedroom. Nor had they built any additions to allow her to swiftly navigate. Reliant on her crutch to get anywhere, it took twice as long as it should to traverse the room.

Between the storm, the newness of the house's shadows and their only neighbor being a beady-eyed old farmer called Old Man Dwin, ingrained terrors shifted in the dark. Nor did it help that Tan liked to antagonize their neighbor by bringing his lovers to the ancient farmer's hayloft.

The day they moved in, she'd read in the car while Tan took their emo real-estate agent Greg there. After a while a shift in the light caused her to look up from the pages. And in the doorway of the rickety building stood Dwin, watching Daria's husband and Greg, pitchfork in his gnarled hands and a twisted smile on his face.

But Old Man Dwin wasn't out on their lawn. No one was out there. That was the point of a little house in the woods. It gave her and Tan somewhere where there was no 'them' to watch.

Watch as Daria's crutch got stuck in mud and she fell down. In the city, she always felt like a fool on parade. Ever since the accident, every person who passed looked. She hated the pity, hated how visible she was despite the fact everyone tried not to look at her.

Old Man Dwin wasn't looking at her. Even when they passed him in town, he only had lecherous eyes for Tan.

"The night has eyes," Tan said, throwing his six foot frame over the queen bed. He wore a towel around his waist and his short hair remained wet from the shower.

Daria touched the stump where her leg had been, fingers shying from the puckered flesh.

The house, their house, their new start berated her with the tap-tap of rain.

"How is it you still look like some college stud?" Daria asked, ignoring both the rain and his drama queen statement. Yet the water drummed through her words like the tick-tick of a clock keeping time, or a bomb waiting to go off. She stared at the wedding ring on her finger-flesh pouching out the sides.

"Well, for starters, I don't bring wine and cookies to bed." He winced at the carelessness of his words but they were said.

No, you bring everything else to bed. The thought wasn't fair so she kept it unspoken. That had always been their arrangement and it had never bothered her when she was equally capable of finding alternate partners.

Over the past year things just slid. First she lost the leg in the accident, then gained a full dress size and lost her job. She looked fifty though she was only forty. While he hadn't changed a hair- identical to that twenty-six-year old bartender he had been when she was in college.

He was all she had, and the more she squeezed, the more he struggled free.

"Sorry, Dar, you know I think-"

"Cut the shit," she said, not wanting lies about how beautiful he still thought she was. Or about how things would get better. She wasn't a lizard. Human legs didn't grow back and without that nothing got better. "You going out tonight?"

"You could come. We used to do this together. A trip to town, pick up a couple of cute farm girls... maybe some dumb, hulky cowboy..."

"No. I'd just spoil your night." Those kids pity me. They don't want to come home with me. Stay with me, please.