(1 of 1. Originally posted on February 09, 2024 for the prompt “Too Sweet.”)
Something moves in the darkness, stalking. Skulking just out of sight. A spiderweb clinging to his brain, transmitting the faintest vibrations as something scuttles closer. A flash of green eyes
“Excuse me, miss…”
The dark-haired woman twisted in her barstool just far enough to give him a look. That lazy down-and-up sweeping look, the corner of her crimson-painted lips twisted, a calculated expression of ‘I want you to see that I looked you over and I’m not impressed.’ She turned back to her fruity martini.
“Miss…” Ken scuffed his shoe across the grainy wooden floorboards. How to say this without sounding creepy? Or desperate. “I’m not hitting on you, I swear. It’s just, something… well… it’s shaping up to be a bad night, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”’
“I’m fine. Thanks.” She didn’t even turn around.
Sliding between the trees like a blood fog. Condensation rolls down a mushroom and hangs in two drops like eyes on either side of a swollen nose, reflecting a green glow
“Okay. Good.” Strike one. Take a breath and try again. This is important. “There’s a bad storm coming. If there’s any chance you don’t feel up to driving, I could give you… I mean… I could call you a cab, at least.”
She turned her head far enough for him to see the side of her eye, not quite looking at him. “Well, aren’t you just too sweet.”
He cringed. A death blow to romantic hopes. Like poisoned sugar. Ken squeezed out an emotionless response, to wear the mask of the social norms that never worked in his favor. Bitterness wouldn’t help. He wasn’t trying to pick her up. Just to get her home alive. “Thanks.”
“Cabs cost money, and take too long to get here.” The woman picked up her purse and spun to face him. “You seem harmless enough. We better go now, to beat that storm.”
He stood frozen, weight resting on his back foot, caught just as he had started to turn away.
She raised a purple-shaded eyebrow at him and motioned toward the door with her chin. “Lead on, cowboy.”
He showed her to his beat-up Plymouth, fumbled with his keys as if he’d had six beers instead of one soft cider. “Where do you live?”
She slid into the passenger’s seat, waiting to answer until he got in and started the car. “Just go out to the right. Little country house, a couple miles down the road.”
He choked the steering wheel with both hands, eyes flicking between the road ahead, the woman beside him, and the dark clouds in the rear-view
hungry predator, following the scent of prey with infinite patience, bared fangs, glinting green eyes
“Turn here,” she pointed to an unpaved drive, a rickety bridge, the faint silhouette of a house in the distance.
He bumped and clattered down the lane, slowing as the clouds caught up and dumped a blanket of water. Tires slipped and squished. Twenty feet from the squat, unlit house, the car slumped into a mudhole and stopped. A tail of mud sprayed up from behind the spinning rear wheel.
The woman sighed. “This rain will flood that bridge in minutes. Looks like you’re stuck here. Come on, I’ll put a blanket on the couch for you.”
Claws sinking into mud. Hot, fetid breath on the back of his neck. Locked in place, he can’t turn, but he can almost see
He trembles. Clenches. Tries to steel himself for an unwinnable fight. Jumps out of the car and runs through the squelching mud behind a woman who seems to float between the raindrops. She opens the front door into a dark living room, turns to him with a smile that grows and splits open, jaw unhinged, fangs dripping as she whispers “…so sweet…” and her green eyes flash
