Exclusive Flash Fiction We asked our followers to send us stories to be published in Horror Bites exclusively. Here is one of our favourites. It slithers. The sudden shiver. The unexplained dread. That’s it, homing in. Some call it the ancient serpent. The root of all evil. Others call it a metaphor. It’s real alright. I can see it. Them. There are millions of the bastards. Or just one, with legions of little pieces. I’m not sure yet. They speak with one voice. Mum and Dad were at each other’s throats the first time I saw it. The shouting was vicious. More so than usual. I was standing close, hoping they would stop. I saw it. It was on the floor, wriggling. It looked like a fat slug, as big as the neighbour’s collie, but black. The blackest black I’d ever seen. More than just an absence of colour. It was an absence of anything real or tangible. And it was twisting on our kitchen floor and moving towards my mum. No one else saw it. My dad looked directly at it and didn’t see it. He just went back to shouting. But something wasn’t right. He felt it and my mum felt it. It was close and something wasn’t right. Just wasn’t right. I tried to warn them but my ten year old self could only whimper. It bit my mum. It reared up and clamped on her leg. She didn’t feel it. Didn’t even look down. What she did was take hold of the bottle of wine they’d been enjoying, and smashed it on dad’s face. It slithered back when the blood spilt. It had grown twice in size. It flared, faded and disappeared and my mum then, and only then, understood what she had done. My dad never truly recovered. Neither did my mum. I’ve seen them loads since. Whenever someone bruises and hurts. Whenever someone batters and lashes. Whenever someone snaps. It’s them, biting. Some are tiny like earthworms. Some are big, like trucks. One lies permanently in Lower Manhattan. Gigantic, coiled and unmoving. I don’t think it’s dead. I think it’s digesting. I’ve watched them. I know what they are and what they leave in their wake. The source of all evil is not a metaphor. AD
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