Unsettlingstories.com Website Review

“Sooooo….what is it?” I asked, chewing the tip of my left pigtail. “I think it’s an old treehouse,” Lisa replied. Her face was speckled with dirt. We’d crossed the wide creek an hour before. It “We can probably climb,” I mused, pointing my di*ty finger at the ragged wooden slats nailed into the side of the tree. Lisa studied the slats. They were rotten. Streaks of rust ran down below the old nails. “Yeah, maybe.” “I’m gonna do it,” I announced, and started toward the makeshift ladder. “Just catch me if I fall.” “You know you’re too heavy,” my friend sighed. “You’ll break my neck.” I pretended not to hear. I placed a tentative foot on the first wooden slat, then shifted my weight back and forth. The piece wobbled, but it didn’t break. I put more weight on it, then grasped the rung above my head and pulled. Still steady. I was fine. “I think it’ll be okay!” I called behind me, and began my ascent. The late-July sun hung like a drop of molten slag in the western sky; not as bright as it had been a few hours ago, but it didn’t feel any cooler. Sweat poured down my brow and chest and legs, spattering Lisa. She clicked her to*gue in annoyance. I stared up through the narrow, jagged square cut into the bottom of the treehouse. Spider webs clung to the faraway ceiling, drifting in “I don’t think you’d like it up here,” I hollered. “I think there’s spiders.” Continue reading “A Treehouse at Sunset” “Where do you want to go?” he whispers. A to*gue, short and pink, slips out and hangs over a generous lower lip. Eel slick. A leafy gutter after a late October rainstorm. Far away, a planet annihilates into its sun. “To them,” she replies, and reaches with a tentative hand. The door widens to accommodate. Skin splits, then knits. New teeth sprout from elongating gums. Enamel amaryllises. Hand, wrist, forearm. The door makes room. It did for me. I was the first to try. And succeed. “How far until…” she asks, only to hush. Right then, she can feel it. I can tell.