Moira Richardson
“I seen a Martian at Walmart,” Herschel says, walking into the farmhouse kitchen.
Marsha don’t stop snapping beans. “Ain’t no Martians,” she says. “You been drinking.”
This isn’t a question.
Herschel remembers the spaceman’s knowing green eyes, three glowing orbs reading his thoughts like the Sunday paper. He goes back to the bedroom, gets his gun like the alien told him to do.
“What you doing, you damn foo–?”
Marsha head disintegrates mid-thought.
Herschel hadn’t pulled the trigger, didn’t need to. His mind did all the dirty work.
Back to Walmart to see if the spaceship part was true, too.
Moira writes weird stories and pretends to be a rat on the internet. @moirariom.bsky.social www.ohmoira.com
The mountain air sends my breath aloft as my footsteps crunch icily over the morning’s path. I’d come for pine-scented solitude, but instead, I found you.
Perhaps you’d hiked the selfsame path, enchanted by this deep forest. Now, you’ve rested here quietly for years. All that remains are your bones, mossy with abandonment and neglect.
As the forest reclaims you with this youthful pine growing through your ribcage, I have to wonder: Who were you before you fell, forgotten? Where have you gone?
I crouch beside you, whispering your last rites, and lay a gathered pine cone at your feet.
Moira writes weird stories and pretends to be a rat on the internet. @moirariom.bsky.social www.ohmoira.com
Still got the same golden-butter hair, same as mine, her eyes a matching blue, but her mouth ain’t right. My mama smiles like summer, but this mama ain’t cracked even one since she come outta old Flander’s windmill.
Her hands on me feel salamander cold. She steers me towards the dusty dark what smells of dead things.
“See what’s inside, sweetie?” she says.
This mama’s voice is dull as rocks, not alive with laughter like it’s supposed to be.
“I ain’t going in there,” I tell this mama, but she won’t stop pushing.
This mama’s stronger, too.
Moira writes weird stories and pretends to be a rat on the internet. @moirariom.bsky.social www.ohmoira.com
The couple in the cabin are dreaming.
For many days the beast outside has waited, still as silence in the woods, watching as the elderly woman rocks in her chair. Such tranquility is alluring. The temptation is strong.
So on this night, the shy creature arises to approach, step by step, onto the old porch, and sits.
The antique chair creaks and strains under the creature’s bulk, allowing one fleeting rocking motion, before splintering into pieces.
The lights flash on, a man’s voice says, “Martha, get my gun.”
Into the forest the creature vanishes, leaving only two giant footprints behind.
Moira writes weird stories and pretends to be a rat on the internet. Find here at @moirariom.bsky.social and www.ohmoira.com