By K. A. Tutin

Megan carried the tray with shaky hands, the glass of orange juice and dry toast clanging against plastic. The juice had expired a week before, and the bread had spots of mould, but it didn’t matter anyhow. It was better than feeding him whoever was on their last legs.

Beneath the porch, it was dusty, coated with dewy cobwebs. He liked the dark.

He scuttled out like a spider when she approached but hunched over like a predator. She laid down the tray and took out the one ingredient that would get him to eat: a human finger, cut off at the second knuckle. She placed it on the piece of dry toast. Gnarled, white hands shot out and took it, stuffed into a gaping hole, and swallowed without so much as a chew. His black and bottomless eyes stared at her, almost doe-like, questioning.

“That’s all I could get you,” Megan says. “I swear.”

His answer was a growl. He couldn’t form words. He could only eat.

His hand shot out, clamping around her foot, gnawed lips stretching over bloodied teeth.

Megan yanked away, tears spilling over before she could drag in a gasp. He gnashed his jaws together, retreating back into his shelter, his cave. Beady eyes were the last thing she saw before she forced herself to pick up the tray, the juice spilled and toast soggy. Her mother would take it with the same solemn look, the one she expected each day she returned from her visits, but she needn’t bother look at

Megan that way because she felt the same: dejected, regretting doing such a stupid thing, remembering the time before she had done so.

Her stomach knotted, and she swiped the tears from her cheeks.

She wished she hadn’t brought her father back from the dead.

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