Kill Them in the Night
by Thomas D. Reynolds
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In the small village on the edge of a dark plain, two figures gather behind the stable. No one can hear them. One flicks nervously at a bent cigarette; the other scratches lichen-covered bark from a towering oak, then sniffs his fingers. Neither utters a sound for several minutes, listening to the steady drops of blood from the taller one’s head exploding into dirt. Finally, one speaks a murmuring whisper seething with fear disguised as vitriol, “There is no one alive but us.” |
Clutching his gun from which a trace of smoke lingers, the shorter figure remembers faces of his neighbors, all the villagers who became robotic, unmistakably alien, who in their gestures revealed dark intent, their otherworldliness. Beyond the village, desert sands gleam in fading moonlight. Holding his hand to his bleeding brow, the taller one weeps. |
