Mr. Chuck Stonehill walked over from next door and told me he found a tackle-box, a bullet, and a rubber by the picnic table in the backyard under the palm tree between our rusting beach trailers.
The streets of Memphis’ town had been orange groves when he was a boy. He remembered as, one by one, the groves were bulldozed to make room for neighborhoods, for the people from up north, finally tired of the long winters, to settle into their respiratory diseases and neurological disorders.
It’s peak season and all the snowbirds are here, trying to escape the horror of the outside, for the last few weeks the smell of decayed ocean life has fallen like a curtain of death.
The Rusalki wait outside my window every night. White lips, grotesque smiles, green hair streaming with silver fish and lily pads. It’s like being in an aquarium. The Rusalki point and jeer through the glass. They tap on the frosted panes with icicle fingernails.
Days passed and I feared she would sleep forever. That the hospital had put her under a sleeping curse. I told Anne my theory that some doctors were witches, some were fairy godmothers...
“Your prepper’s pantry will be the building block of your family’s survival system,” the page begins. “Have you read our guide, ‘37 Items to Hoard Before a Crisis’? If so, the list below of essentials to stockpile will likely be familiar to you.” Martha has not read the guide, and she’s no stranger to crisis.