Fiendish Feasts

Shtriga by Goodnight_Saigon

The Farm by Goodnight_Saigon

"Wivy! Wivy! Wook at the cwab!"

I casually flipped a page of my comic book, and with a frustrated sigh, blew a strand of hair away from my eyes before it could become a nuisance, not looking up. "It's Liv. Liv," I said, dragging out each letter sound and enunciating carefully. "Take your finger outta your mouth and say my name properly, Jesus..."

"Olivia May Reynolds!" scolded my mother from the front passenger seat, turning to reprimand me as my half-brother, the product of her second marriage, gawked at me with gradually watering eyes. "Don't use the Lord's name as a curse, especially not in front o' Devon! Apologize right now." Then, like the dedicated and caring parent she was, she turned back around with a derisive head shake, narrowly missing the dirty look I shot her way as she continued her conversation with my step-father.

I'd curse using whatever Goddamn word I wanted, screw my mother.

"What's wrong with crabs?"

My scowl softened at Devon's wide brown eyes and I put my comic aside to hastily brush away a few tears that had escaped. "Ah, Dev, I'm sorry, that was harsh. Ain't nothin' wrong with cwa— I mean, crabs. Where'd you see a crab so far from the ocean?"

"In the sky!" he said with a sniff, immediately putting his thumb back in its usual position in his mouth. "A cwab in the cwouds!"

I smiled slightly. "You saw a cloud shaped like a crab?"

He nodded excitedly, already forgetting my outburst.

"Well," I leaned over as best I could with my seatbelt trying to pull me back and pointed out his window, "what d'you think o' that one, Kid? Kinda looks like a duck, huh?"

The cloud didn't really look like a duck, but he pounded his tiny fists against the glass with delight anyway, enthralled with the fluffy cotton balls peppering the bright blue sky.

Fields of corn passed by as we drove along the one-lane highway, heading to 'the shindig of the summer' as my mother had cheerfully chirped a half-hour before. I hadn't even been given a warning before being shoved in the back of the truck with a three-year-old for a responsibility. I wasn't to let him out of my sight under any circumstances and I had to entertain him for the duration of the get-together, which sucked balls in my opinion. Normally, I would voice my irritation aloud, but I wasn't in the mood for another lecture on my attitude and how much I was disappointing God; two was enough for one day.

Just as the thought that we must be nearing the Texas-Mexico border crossed my mind, the asphalt changed to dirt beneath my step-father's beloved Chevy as we turned onto a side road, dust kicking up in our wake. The beginning of the property was coming into sight and our first view of the farm was of its miniature horses in a wide pen to our left, fields stretching around the main house towards a thick forest several hundred yards away.

Devon squealed at the "baby horsies", kicking his stubby legs against my mother's seat with excitement.

"Devon, you stop that," she said disdainfully. "You need to be on your best behaviour in front of Daddy and Mommy's friends, you hear?"

I rolled my eyes while he bobbed his head, thumb still lodged firmly in his mouth. He's three, Ma, what do you expect? A discussion on Shakespeare? Or maybe politics? Hell, I could barely hold a discussion with adults and I was thirteen, what was a three-year-old supposed to do?

Cars and beat-up pickups had already started to line the road but there were still some parking spots left on the front lawn. We pulled into the entranceway of the property, passing between two stone pillars topped with creepy-looking gargoyles. I shivered at their grotesque faces, forked tongues lolling from their open maws, and imagined their eyes burning with hellfire as they shook the dust from their leathery wings, living creatures encased in stone.