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child, but his secret—that belongs to me. And now, so does
he.”
Tom Hush’s antlered shadow replaced my father’s, where
it once fell from the body he occupied. The custodian turned
to face me, but it was Tom who looked at me, eyes blazing a
terrible curiosity. “In time, all things are reborn, in one form
or another, to lope across the stage of life in an infinity of
pointless returns—but not you. It pleases me more than you
could ever know to rob you of your fate, to sup upon one of
the blackest secrets I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.”
Before I knew it, my father bore down upon me. My
sisters rose against him, all of us wearing smiles worn
countless times before, by gods and the fools who amused
them.
My sisters were innocents in all of this. Carved from
clearest purpose, they smiled out of the softest love for
blood, spilled only for fun and family. I could not bring
them before our father, not like this. As the Eater of Secrets
hedged his bets by flooding the hallway with more maddened
orderlies, I thrust my sisters into the metamorphosed flesh
of two of the nearest abominations. Instantly, my sisters’
sweet smiles transferred themselves from steel and bone
to insanity-infected flesh, their new bodies dripping with
the honeyed and horrible laughter of the Devil’s children.
They were beyond Tom’s reach, as they were absent worldly
complexity, having long since filled their minds only with
the brightest, sharpest thoughts that children could kill with.
As for my father and I, our battle would commence in
earnest, but first I would need to relieve him of his weapon,
for its lightest touch promised death. The axe—now no
longer the seat of my father’s spirit—moved with prehistoric
brutality, smashing about furiously, ceaselessly. Keeping the
monstrous hordes at bay were my sisters, two slaughter-
honed monsters whose wits were whetted upon the broken
bones of countless victims. All the while, each swing of the
giant weapon brought my death closer and closer.
176 | Mark Anzalone