Lara sipped from a small cup of tea.  She stood in front of a large glass door that provided a view of the flower-filled garden outside.

Steve entered the room. He walked across the large chamber and he stopped behind Lara.

He held an old wooden marionette in his grasp. He raised the puppet’s arm and he tapped Lara’s shoulder with the figure’s cracked hand.

“Hey, Lara.”

Lara turned around. She looked at Steve with a smile. 

“Steve, I didn’t hear you come in.”  

“Your maid let me in.”

“Good, I have some tea and sandwiches for us on the table and…”

Lara’s smile faded when she saw the puppet.

“Steve, what is that?”

“This is Pete. Do you like him?”

“No, I don’t. Put it away. Or better yet throw the damned thing away. You know I can’t stand those things.”

“Oh come on, Sis. You’re always complaining about how I never bring any of my friends over. And look. Here’s my new friend.”

Steve raised the puppet in his grasp. He pressed his cheek against the doll’s painted face with a grin.

“That thing is really disturbing, Steve.  And you’re a little old to be playing with toys.”

“No, being a puppeteer has become my new hobby.”

“When did you decide to take up this new hobby?”

“Since I found him in an old trunk in my attic a few days ago.”

“You should have left it there.”

“No, he’s much too cool for that.  Just look.”

Steve placed the marionette on the floor.

The puppet’s feet struck the hardwood flooring with loud clattering sounds.

Steve stood erect. He lifted an oblong shaped piece of wood in his left hand and he shook it.

Four thick dark cords dangled from the lower portion of the wooden piece and the wires were attached
to the marionette’s limbs.

The puppet rose to its feet and performed a clumsy dance while it waved its hands at Lara.

“He likes you.”

“Well I don’t like him. Get rid of it or there’ll be no cake for you.”

“You made cake?”

“Yes.”

“So, uh. What’d you make?”

“Caramel Strawberry and Orange Bravery with coconut.”

“Orange Bravery. Wow, I haven’t had that since…”

“Since you graduated from university and Mom made it special.” 

“That seemed so long ago.”

“It was ten years ago I think.”

“Yeah, something like that.  I really like Orange Bravery Cake.”

“I know.”

“Do you have some on the table?”

Steve looked across the room. A small glass table filled with an assortment of foods rested near the center of the chamber.

“I don’t see any cake.” 

“There isn’t any.”

“That means you told a fib.  Shame on you, Sis. Right Pete?”

Steve shook the wooden plank.

The puppet placed its hands atop its mouth.

“Pete here is in shock.”

“I didn’t tell a fib. I just finished baking and it needs time to cool. I’ll have to send for the maid to bring it.”

“Okay, let’s eat.”

“The sooner you get rid of that thing you can eat.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“I know. So are you coming to table or what?”

“Don’t know.”

“What?”

“Your Orange Bravery Cake is not Mom’s Orange Bravery Cake. But your Caramel Strawberry cake
rocks!” 

“All of my dishes rock.”

“Not your Lemon Bars. Too much sweet and not enough tang.”

“My Lemon Bars are perfection.”

“No uh. Right Pete?”

Steve shook the plank while he spoke.

“Right O. You can barely taste the lemons.”

Steve stopped his movements. He stared at the floor.

Hundreds of shining black insects crawled across the wooden planks near him.

The insects were nearly an inch long.  The slow moving creatures possessed oblong shaped bodies. 
Small wings adorned their spines.

“Oh sis. You’ve got Carpenter Ants.”

“What?”

“They’re all over the floor here. It looks like they’re coming up from in between the beams. And some
of them. Wait, all of them have wings.  A few of them are trying to fly.”

“Ants don’t have wings. Well, the Queen does.”

Lara looked at the floor.  She stared at the small swarm of wriggling black bugs.

“Those aren’t ants. They’re termites. Ugh, they’re back again.”

“Again?”

“Yes, this is their annual appearance.   A menace really because they always show up here first and
this is the loveliest room in the house.  I’ll have to call the exterminator again.  I guess this is what happens when you buy a one hundred and fifty year old house. I hate termites.”

“They look pretty harmless to me.”

“Steve, they eat wood! And you wouldn’t be so quick to defend them if you fell through the floor
because of their damage.”

“They eat wood!”  a voice squealed.

Lara and Steve looked at Pete.

Pete shook violently while he stared at the black insects. 

A few of the winged creatures took flight and they soared across the room in Pete’s direction.

“Outta here!” Pete cried.

Pete raised his arms. He pulled at the dark cords that hovered above his head.

The wires separated from the wooden plank with a loud crack.

Pete shoved Steve from his path.

Steve fell to the floor onto his spine.

Pete jumped over Steve and he ran across the room in the direction of the glass door.

A small swarm of flying termites followed him.

Pete slapped at the bugs and he crashed through the glass doors and ran outside.  He sprinted across
the garden and disappeared within the lush green shrubbery with a loud shriek of terror. Steve sat up. He rubbed his head while he gazed at the large hole in the door.

The aperture possessed the shape of the small wooden marionette in flight.

Several buzzing termites flew across the room and soared through the opening.

“Lara, what just happened?”

“It looks like your little friend won’t be coming back.”

“Oh.”

“So, would you like milk with your Orange Bravery or would a shot of bourbon do?”

“Bourbon.”

__________________

©2010 Amanda Lawrence Auvergine

Amanda Lawrence Auverigne writes dark fiction.  Please visit Amanda’s website at:  http://auverigne.com

I’d never seen a dead body like that before.

Daddy always tried to get me to go hunting, but I never much cared for shooting up the forest just for a good kill.

“You’ll never be a real man till you get your hands dirty,” my daddy would tell me packing up his truck and gear.

He was a sturdy man, a brick shithouse most folk called him.  ‘Course never understood why anyone would want to be built like anything like that.

Instead, I’d sit at home with Mama or go to a buddy’s house till Daddy got home with a fresh kill.  He’d make me watch as he’d string it up in the garage and split the animal’s belly.

Course, he’d never brought anything home quite like the kill he scored in the woods that day.

He hauled it by its heels from the bed of the truck.  I’d just gotten in from playing touch football with some boys down the road.  I had no interest in helping Daddy with his new prize, but then I’d never seen wings on anything so beautiful.

Piqued like an anxious virgin on prom night I crept up behind Daddy and offered to help him carry it to the garage.  Daddy did the initial work in there because of all the mess.  He’d take the skinned body to the walk-in freezer later and carve the meat.

Laid out on the worktable, its body was perfect; a divine symmetry that only the Lord himself could have carved from smooth, polished alabaster.  I ran my hands over its cold legs, up along the curves of its muscular haunches.  Heat flowered under my skin and I hadn’t expected the rush of blood to quicken so.

My eyes and hands wandered up along its firm abdomen and the bend of its torso.  There was something overtly sexual about the sensations roused in my frame.  I’d never been so close to something so terribly beautiful and though it was a corpse and its meat would nourish my growing body, I was in love.

Daddy eyed me from afar, and smiled amiably.  He busied himself shearing the beautiful beast’s coal black hair.  I wanted to bury my face in pelts of it.  I imagined myself naked in front of a warm fire, laid upon a carpet made of the black waves.

In my art class the teacher showed us famous sculptures, one of which, “The Dying Gaul” stuck out in my mind as I ran my hands over the taut, sinewy flesh.  The sculpture was of a dying warrior, so magnificently formed it was often thought to be alive.

I could appreciate their amazement now, for here I was looking upon such awe and splendor.

I was touching God.

My heart fluttered when he flipped the body onto its stomach.  I ran my hand up over the snowy white hills of its rump and traced my fingers along a river of dried blood that coursed down the path of its spine.

“Gonna help me skin it, son?”  Daddy asked offering me a newly sharpened pair of shears.

I took them, but didn’t quite know where to start.  Part of me was disenchanted by the thought of the cold, sterile shears mutilating the perfect flesh.  It was an affront to nature to separate this wonderous work of art from its skin.

“In the end, son, it’s just a shell,” Daddy would say.  “Underneath is where all the magic happens.”

“Give me a sec son, I’ll show you the best place to begin.”

Once the beast’s head was balder than a bowling ball, Daddy gathered the hair and placed it in a wicker basket.

Daddy fetched a hefty hacksaw from his tool box and came around the side of the table where I stood holding the shears.

“First, we got to hack off these blasted wings.  It’ll make maneuvering around the shoulder blades so much easier.”
Daddy set the saw to work, grinding it hard against the bones of the creature’s wings.

“We are so blessed, sonny,” Daddy said gritting his teeth as he drove the blade deep into the marrow.  “So very blessed.”

Blood trickled over the sides of the body as the teeth of the saw nicked the porcelain skin.  I reached out tentatively and blotted my fingertip in a sweet red jewel.  It was slightly sticky, like Mama’s cherry pie.  I pushed my finger to my lips and suckled like a wee baby.

Heaven on my tongue.

With a great application of strength, Daddy cracked and twisted the bone, jerking the creature’s wing free like a stubborn switch from a tree.

“There it comes, tough old bird,” Daddy said shucking the white feathery appendage onto the plastic tarp on the floor.  The underside of its feathered sails was dripping candied apple red.

“You boys still at it?”  Mama asked stepping into the garage.  Her hands were dusted in flour.

“Won’t be long now, darlin’.  Sonny boy here is gonna get his hands dirty and help me skin it.”

“You sure now, honey?”

I nodded absently, head still swimming with the intoxicating blush of the blood on my tongue.

I wanted to get my hands dirty now.  I wanted to explore this gorgeous creature’s flesh.  My anxious hand exercised the shears, parting the blades slowly and bringing them back together again.  Soon those slender blades would savor its skin, and when Daddy carved the meat from the bone, so would I.

“Maybe next time around you’ll join me, eh sonny?  Make a man of ya yet.”

“Can we hunt down another of these,” I asked eagerly.

“Certainly give it a go.  These things rarer than a unicorn I’d wager, but time and good fortune.”

I felt the heat rush into my cheeks again as I beamed at the prospect.  I’d be ready, oh so ready.

“Save the feathers, will ya,” Mama said dusting flour from her hands onto her apron.  “I’ll knit ya some nice new pillows.”

_____________________

©2010 D.A. Hernandez

David Alan Hernandez is a native-born Texan currently working on his bachelor’s degree in creative writing/education.  Writing has always been an important facet to the author’s life, starting at a young age, and that ambition and drive to create continues to flourish.  His work can be found published in various online horror and fantasy Ezines including, The Harrow, Sonar4, Flashes in The Dark, Microhorror and also the college literary journal, The Rio Review.