Family Dynamics
Sunday Bonus Short Story
Hello Readers:
I wrote Family Dynamics a few months ago and wanted to share a short work of fiction with all of you. The story will be featured in the upcoming Shivercon anthology along with a host of other story’s written by authors who are attending the conference in August. Word count is just over 2k words, making for a short read on a nice Sunday morning.
As I’ve stated more than a few times over the past few months, my goal for 2026 is to focus on shorter pieces. Novellas, novelettes, short fiction and flash fiction. What does this all mean, well, let’s just say there’s more to come. Plus, it’s a good taste of what you can expect once we enter the paid tier phase at PD’s Alternative Fiction. I’ll have more information on what will be included in the paid tiers over the next six weeks, until then you can expect a few additional short story’s including: Moonlight Mystery (flash fiction), Aunt Edna (winner of the Patrick McNulty Flash Fiction contest), and the first in a planned short story series, The Red Cane, which is a tie-in to the Dominion of Shadows series (Golem, Jigglyspot and the Zero Intellect, and The Sleepy Hollow Incident).
For now, enjoy a little witchy short story as I present to you: Family Dynamics.
Happy Sunday.
With gratitude,
PD Alleva
Family Dynamics
By PD Alleva
Cecil O’Malley sat in the mortuary’s cooler room, staring at Bethany covered in a white sheet. Gary the mortician had dragged her out of the cooler for him to inspect, but he needed to sit down.
Come, boy!
Bethany’s high-pitched voice sliced through his brain like a hot knife, cringing his heart with a startle. He could hear her all the way from the netherworld. Although among the profound statements, Bethany was surrounded with confusion and suffering. Voices that were not Bethany’s were screaming inside his head. Plotting and planning, Cecil was certain, nefarious deeds laced with tragedy. Or perhaps they were Bethany’s thoughts. Perhaps she was the one plotting those deeds.
Something was wrong, Cecil knew, and it certainly had nothing to do with being dead.
He stood up, his heart thundering, and slowly crept closer to the body. His hand shook when he removed the sheet. Her cold blue skin and frozen lips, and the stare filled with shock forever ingrained on her face. The face disturbed him. Her jaw hung open at an unnatural angle, and her rotten black tongue sat on top of her chapped and blue bottom lip. Yes, it could have come from the sudden shock of a heart attack, but it could also mean she was shocked to death by fear. Her eyes were open and covered with a white sheen.
Come… give us a kiss.
His attention was on her chest, and the semicircle burned into her skin. He could almost cry when he placed his trembling hand over the wound.
“Where’s your medallion?” He touched her forehead with his free hand, gentle, caring. “Did the girls take it? Did one of them do this to you? Tell me, what do you wish for me to do?”
Give us a kiss.
Cecil could no longer resist. He planted a kiss across her open mouth, his tongue dancing around Bethany’s erect stick of putrid. Cecil wrapped his lips around it, easing his head back and forth, sucking on her tongue.
*****
Deacon Fry took his stance in front of the bonfire in the desert. His three tender little morsels tied and gagged around the fire. The sisters were all crying, screaming through their gags.
Deacon enjoyed the beautiful music their lungs sought fit to create. Hollers and fearful moaning cries meant just for him, echoing into the dark void of his heart. It brought a smile to his face as he gazed into the flames.
This was Deacon’s method to his madness, as he always referred to it. Deacon had been traversing most of America, Canada, and Mexico for the better part of the last ten years, relying on his wit and the compassion of truck drivers when he needed to disappear. Truck drivers were often so lonely that picking up a hitchhiker-despite the many warnings not to do so-was a means of travel Deacon relied on.
Get out of Dodge quick, was Deacon’s mantra.
Deacon had built the fire this afternoon in preparation for the blood and carnage he knew he’d be doling out today. Something was in the air. Some energy he could feel in his bones, telling him his next venture was just down the road.
The sisters practically landed in his lap like a gift from above. Or below, depending on how upside down your life had become. They said they had come from their mother’s funeral, which Deacon deduced was the reason they allowed him entrance into their car. Compassion is often heightened in the aftermath of tragedy.
Violet, Charlotte, and Willow were their names. Oldest, middle, and youngest, respectively. They all seemed to be in their twenties. Now, Violet was squirming across the desert sand. A most futile effort.
Deacon started with her. He slammed his boot down on her spine to hold her in place. “Stop moving. You’ll only make things worse.”
Violet let out a final guffaw before falling silent. Charlotte and Willow followed suit.
Deacon unsheathed his six-inch blade from his belt buckle. He licked his thumb then wiped the blade down. “Have you ladies ever heard of lingchi? Or, more properly referred to as death by a thousand cuts.” He gazed over at his audience and the petrified stares that melted his heart. “The way I see it is we have all night, and all night translates to a lot of cuts and a lot of pain, but know this, dear ladies… I guarantee the pain will end before dawn. When your blood and pain will be purified by… FIRE!” Deacon raised his hands to the fire, worshipping it as if it were God, although it was just for show. He could never not be dramatic. “Let us begin.”
He reached behind Violet then sliced across her forearm resulting in an immediate scream. Her body cringed, and she gritted her teeth. Blood bubbled out of the wound then flooded down her arm.
“Nine-hundred and ninety-nine to go.” Deacon stepped over to Charlotte. The petrified Charlotte shook her head violently, crying desperation laced in her throat. He stood over her hogtied body, assessing where to place the first cut. Deacon crouched down and gripped her wrist, investigating her hands. “You’ve been playing with fire already, haven’t you, Charlotte?” Her palm looked like she’d dipped it into fire. It was all blistered with a semicircle burned into the flesh. He noticed the hushed crying from the sisters and the strained stares passing between them. “Very well then.” He craned his head to gain Charlotte’s attention. “This is really going to hurt.”
Deacon sliced across her charred palm eliciting a bloodcurdling wail that belted from her throat. The skin came away like crepe paper. The blisters severed in half, and her skin parted like the Red Sea. Blood swam out of her trembling palm. Deacon stood.
“Nine-hundred and ninety-eight.” He skipped over to Willow. “And around and around and around we go.” He stopped and looked down at her.
Willow intrigued him more than the others. Perhaps it was a kinship. Deacon was the youngest of ten. Or perhaps it was the way she looked at him. Stoic, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Deacon crouched down. She was lying on her back with her hands tied behind her back, gazing at the sky. He brushed the hair from her face. “I like you, Willow, which is why I’m going to be gentle with you. Your sisters can bleed to death for all I care, but you.” He shook his head. “You, I want to see burn alive.” He craned his head, glaring at her. “I want to hear you scream when the fire eats you.” He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. “The scent of your flesh will be intoxicating. All that quiet innocence will burn all the way to heaven.”
Deacon scanned Willow’s body then raised her shirt. He patted her flesh, then dragged his knife across her navel with an automatic cringe from Willow. Her head and shoulders arched. Her body shuddered, gritting her teeth. Blood raced out of the wound like a released valve, saturating her pants and swarming across her abdomen. Deacon shook his head. “You just gotta love it.” He cocked his eyebrows.
“Nine-hundred and ninety-seven.”
*****
Deacon stood by the fire, watching the bodies burn. He enjoyed it when the skin melted like plastic, and the way the eyeballs popped then sizzled on the burning log. Loved watching the hair singe off the skull with a blast of flames, and how the smoke lifted the fresh scent to his nose. There’s nothing better than cooking human skin.
His focus was on Willow, the last to be added to the fire, recounting how he stood her up then told her it would be all right, providing comfort in her final moment. A shred of hope that will return with venom. “You’re going to see your mother soon,” he’d said, then kicked her, gagged and bound and soaked in blood, into the fire.
The look in her eyes seemed petrified, but Deacon wasn’t certain if it was because of the fire… or because she would be with her mother soon. Some mothers are just evil. Perhaps Willows was too.
He’d gone through their pockets before he tossed them into the fire. The girls had little-a few hundred dollars between them-and a medallion made of silver with a strange engraving that looked like an ancient symbol. Deacon had never seen such a symbol, but he deduced the medallion was worth something. At least to someone, and he knew an antiques dealer in Texas he could bring it to.
He took Violet’s keys, too. Considering the time, he could drive halfway across Arizona without a concern. No one knew the girls were dead, so no one would be looking for the car. Then the plan was simple. Deacon knew a truck stop where he could ditch the car and catch a ride. Back on the road again, which was fine to Deacon. He’d been hitchhiking since he was sixteen. What better way was there to stay off the grid than to keep moving?
*****
Deacon successfully cleaned himself up using the sink at the truck stop, then ditched his blood-soaked clothes in the garbage and hailed the first trucker he could find.
Now he was on the road, the semi-truck screaming down the highway. The trucker-Galvin Tudesci-wasn’t much of a talker, and Deacon was grateful for it. He wanted to close his eyes and rehash his time with the girls. He even held the medallion, his fingers smoothing over the engraved ancient symbol. The act was meditative, allowing him to not only rehash the killing but to relive it, too.
Deacon felt the truck drift before he opened his eyes. The sudden jerk to the right startled him. He saw the semi racing towards the side of the road. Car horns started blaring. Tires screeched all around them.
“What’re you doing?” Deacon braced himself then shot his stare over to the driver and did a double take. The driver’s eyeballs were glazed over and all white, his jaw hanging open at an unnatural angle. The truck kept moving, sprinting off the highway. “Are you fuckin sleeping?” The truck jumped off the road at warp speed. “Dude, wake the fuck up!”
The semi crashed into a wall separating the highway from the neighborhood behind it.
The last thing Deacon saw was the windshield when he crashed through it.
*****
Police Chief Cecil O’Malley arrived at the scene of the accident. The paramedics weren’t certain, but they believed the driver had suffered a heart attack. His passenger had been jettisoned through the windshield, his skull split open when he hit the wall. The poor guy’s head was cracked open like a cantaloupe. His brain oozed out of the cracked skull, simmering in the sweltering desert heat. There was so much blood on the hood, the blue paint had turned burgundy red.
Cecil studied the body lying across the hood. He must have hit the wall headfirst then bounced back onto the hood.
Come and give us a kiss, boy.
Cecil felt his heart twitch. He focused inward, believing he heard that right.
“Priestess?”
Cecil’s jaw hung open, listening.
Yes… Come and give us a kiss.
His eyes narrowed, scrutinizing the passenger. The dead passenger’s arm was extended towards the wall. His fingers wrapped around something in his palm, although the index finger was pointing straight ahead. Cecil pried the dead fingers apart.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
He could do nothing but grin when he removed Bethany’s medallion from the passenger’s hand.
“Son of a bitch.”
He looked up at the afternoon sun. He could hear Bethany’s high-pitched cackle rain down from the netherworld.
“Hail to the High Priestess.”
He gazed over the passenger’s bloodied face while squeezing the medallion, giddy as a child.
Cecil smiled. “Yes, Priestess. I will undoubtedly return what is rightfully yours.”
Come… and give us a kiss, boy!
Great short story Paul!
Cool!