Sweet Things

candy

By Allison M. Dickson

As the author herself puts it, this is a sinister little tale. Consider yourself warned.

It was Halloween night, so of course…razor blades. Also needles and wood splinters and rat poison. But just a dash. He didn’t want to kill anybody. He just wanted them to cry. Maybe they would never eat candy again. Maybe they wouldn’t turn into fat little slobs. Maybe they would live longer and have better teeth.

Maybe he was saving humanity.

Parents were crafty little inspectors, so he’d honed his skills over the years, each little candy bar a painstaking operation that would make a surgeon weep with envy. A singular puncture hole, a slightly imperfect seal, and all his hard work would be so much refuse for rats or other garbage bin carrion, and that would not do.

The right tools were essential. Fine tweezers for opening the ends of each package, a commercial heat sealer for closing them back up again so they looked fresh from the factory. A pair of tin snips for making the bits of needles and razor blades into devious silver confetti to be sprinkled carefully throughout each confection. A mortar and pestle to grind the rat poison into a fine powder so that he could combine it with a viscous mixture to be inserted with a hypodermic needle, undetectable particularly amid the caramel varieties.

He found a soldering iron to be useful for melting the chocolate back over the places he’d inserted his special ingredients. No one would detect his trickery—until it was too late. After his treatment, the candy looked just as it did before. Perhaps even better.

He was a maestro of the subtle. Continue reading

Shardana

Wetlands

By Dellani Oakes

She walked through the jungle, the soft light warm on her opalescent skin. Cobalt blue hair cascaded down her back in tumultuous curls. Shaking her head, she laughed, the sound ringing and echoing like bells.

Shardana had never seen a bell. She didn’t even know what they were, but he knew. He hadn’t heard bells in awhile, he missed them sometimes. But he had her laugh and that was almost enough.

The river roiled over boulders, falling over the cliff to rumble and tumble on the sharp rocks below. Shardana yanked her hand away, rushing headlong for the lip of the land. He wouldn’t be joining her in her long swan dive to the lower river. They’d learned long ago that his body couldn’t handle the trauma of either dive or water pressure like hers could. Shardana was not a soft and cuddly plaything. As lethal as she was dangerously beautiful, she ruled undisputed over her domain. Most days she was glad of her visitor. Others, she demanded he leave. He couldn’t go entirely, but he had a place to stay on his own, away from her wrath. Continue reading