Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner (the ebook reader .txt) 📕

and once it was inside, his dick went fully limp, like a balloon that’s had all the air let out of it. He continued screaming, unaware that blood now bubbled up from deep inside him and ran down his chin and the sides of his face. He felt a sharp piercing pain just below his sternum, followed by an awful pushing and tearing sensation. A small fissure opened in his skin, followed by a trickle of blood. And then a clawed black hand burst upward in a spray of blood.

As Norman died, he saw the Shadowkin pull itself free from his body, and as the great dark rushed in to claim him, he had time for a final thought.

Should’ve worn a condom.

And then he was gone.

* * *

Blanche Tucker was eighty-three years old, and she could still get around on her own – more or less. She lived in a retirement community, Sunrise Hills, a stupidly bland name, but the place was a hell of a lot better than a full-fledged nursing home. She didn’t drive anymore, so she relied on Uber and Lyft to get from point A to point B. Her vision was okay, and while she wouldn’t be running any marathons in the future, she could walk just fine. Her mind wasn’t as nimble as it once was. Her thoughts came more slowly these days, and she couldn’t always remember things right away, but she showed no signs of dementia, thank the lord. Overall, her health was good. At least, as good as it could be given her age. She took a handful of pills in the morning and another handful at night, which was a pain in the ass, but they kept her functioning, so she put up with them.

People marveled at how active and mentally alert she was at her age. You should thank the lord for your good health, one of the other residents at Sunrise Hills had once told her. She’d received similar expressions of wonder combined with envy from other people. But although she was grateful for her health, she lived in a constant state of dread. For the thing about getting older was that each day brought her another day closer to death. This was true for everything that lived, of course, but only human beings were aware of it, and most could ignore this cold reality and get on with the business of living. But when you reached a certain age – which Blanche had done a while ago – you knew that there were fewer days ahead than behind. Each tick of the clock brought you closer to death, and while you didn’t know when the big event would occur – unless you took your own life, of course – you knew it would be sooner rather than later. It didn’t help that you got to watch so many friends and family members go before you did. Her husband (heart attack at sixty-nine), their only child (heroin overdose in her thirties), her sister (massive stroke in her mid-seventies), her best friend (breast cancer in her fifties). The parade of death kept marching on, and one day you’d have no choice but to join it.

So Blanche was paranoid about her health, always alert for any sign there was something wrong with her – seriously wrong. She washed her hands obsessively, used hand sanitizer when she couldn’t wash. She checked her pulse multiple times a day, monitored her bowel movements, never forgot to take her pills, and exercised to the degree of which her old body was capable. She ate right, avoided fat and sugar, stayed away from caffeine, and visited her doctor regularly. Too regularly. Whenever she had the least little concern about her health – a pain in her stomach, a stubborn cough that held on too long – she went to her doctor’s office. She went so often that during her last visit, the doctor had suggested that she make a regular appointment to come in once a month to be checked out, but otherwise she wouldn’t come in unless she was running a high fever or was in excruciating pain. And the doctor had emphasized excruciating. She’d reluctantly agreed, although she doubted she’d be able to stick to the plan. As soon as her throat got too dry or her hands began to ache – as soon as anything happened – she’d be back in. She couldn’t help herself. The doctor had never used the word hypochondria, but she knew that’s what the woman was thinking. The doctor was half Blanche’s age. Wait’ll you hit your eighties, she thought. Your definition of hypochondria will change then.

She’d decided to do some early Christmas shopping for her great-grandnieces and nephews, and she’d gone out even though it was raining. A lot of the residents at Sunrise Hills wouldn’t set foot outside if the weather wasn’t absolutely perfect. Not Blanche. She’d put on her coat, grabbed her umbrella, called an Uber, and had the driver drop her off at a small shopping plaza not far from downtown. There was a store there called Blue Elephant Toys that specialized in items you couldn’t find in big box stores, funky educational toys, as well as playthings designed to exercise children’s imaginations. No Barbies or Pokemon here. She’d spoken with the owner the last time she’d stopped in, and the woman had told her the store carried a curated selection of toys. Blanche liked that word. Curated, like in a museum.

She stood outside the store now, the building’s overhanging roof protecting her from the rain, so she didn’t need to use her umbrella. The Uber driver had dropped her off here, but after paying and getting out of the car, she hadn’t gone inside the store. The instant she stepped out of the car, she started having trouble catching her breath. She told herself that nothing bad was happening. She got winded sometimes, especially if she pushed herself too hard, and she’d spent