100 Words a Day 1012

It was the second body found floating in the canal that week. This one was found in the afternoon; the early-riser who discovered the first corpse had changed her route. Both victims had the same bizarre wounds.

There was a ring of suckers, like an octopus’ tentacle, around their neck, an exploded nasal canal, and no brain.

The authorities were baffled and the media was having a field day. Every channel had the police chief looking uncomfortable as he was assailed by questions he couldn’t answer or some wacko claiming the killer was a forgotten monster from humanity’s distant past.

100 Words a Day 1011

The red soot vomited from the massive chimneys stamped across the planet’s surface was impossible to clean. The vice dens did their best, wiping everything down, sweeping, running noisy air filters. But it was never enough to get the smell of burnt chemicals out of the air, nor completely remove the red film that settled on every surface. The proprietors kept their lighting low and burned incense imported from the nearby Argilous system. After shift, the coughing, ashen, and spindly workers oozed out of their factories, through the neon-framed door of their favorite recreational establishment, and drugged the pain away.

100 Words a Day 1010

I peeked left and right down the corridor before emerging and crept through the lower decks. No crew in sight. When I finally found one, he was hurrying to the lowest interior of the massive vessel.

“Where is everyone?”

“At Red Feast.”

“What?”

He continued walking; I followed.

His hurried steps led me to a feast hall. The crew sat at a long table and gorged themselves on unknown flesh. They passed around a plate with ten sausages, each a few inches in length. Every sailor selected one and began chewing it nosily. Their mastication sounded monstrously in my ear.

100 Words a Day 1009

She rolled up her sleeves in preparation, revealing a series of black splotches on her arms.

“What’s that?” someone in the crowd demanded. “Plague?”

“And if it is? What about it?” the woman snarled, turning towards the man and drawing her sword.

He took a step back. As did everyone who had formed a ring around the combatants.

Blades drawn, the two circled.

The man lunged forward, sword rushing towards the woman. In a puff of inky smoke, she vanished. He felt something sharp against his kidney. Turning his head, he saw the woman behind him, arms now entire black.