The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Blood on Her Tongue
by Marge Simon
When I was a little boy, my adopted parents got a Siamese cat. They wanted to breed her. When the time came, that was done. By and by, she had a litter of six kittens. But as we watched each born, she would not clean them. She did nothing. So we sterilized an eyedropper to give them watery condensed milk, and put the tiny ones back into the birthing box. Come the morning, she was cleaning herself. Six small bodies lay mutilated, dead. There was blood on her tongue.
There are times when the moments hang suspended and life begins or ends. It was so when I was born, I’d not have lived, had she not intervened. My mother was drained while in labor with me. She didn’t survive childbirth. It had been a dreadful mistake, for which nothing could be done. After I emerged from the womb — the creature who’d killed my mother wrapped me in her shawl. It was her face that my eyes first recorded. They say that’s impossible for a newborn, but she was there, as real then as now. She emerges from the shadows. Her pale skin is riddled with tiny cracks, like ancient porcelain. Her lips are red, placenta bright. There is nothing comforting in her eyes. She smiles and takes my trembling hand.
“It has been as hard for me as it was for you, my darling boy. I always felt you were my own. They found me holding you, I had to leave you to their care.” Suddenly, she closes swiftly in on me. “Blood of my blood, come to Mama .” Her mouth opens wide. A prick I barely feel, and then the suck and swallow sounds as I surrender. Without protest, I drift toward death. I know her greater strength, and I’m sure she’ll drink me dry. I sought to pray, but the last thing I remember is that perverted cat.
Fiction © Copyright Marge Simon
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from Marge Simon:
The Demeter Diaries
by
‘The Demeter Diaries’ is a record of love and longing and the inevitable horror that arises between the minds of Mina Harker and Vlad Dracula as they court one another in waking dreams. The dialogue, written in both poetry and prose, imagines a psychic connection that develops between the two even before Dracula arrives in England. As Dracula makes his way from Transylvania to Whitby on the doomed ship Demeter, the two would-be lovers transmit their thoughts across the waves and lands that separate them, alternately wooing and terrifying one another with the idea of love eternal and all the dark delicacies necessary to ensure it. Front cover art by Wendy Saber Core, interior illustrations by Luke Spooner.
Spreading the Writer's Word 
Wow, Marge! You have seriously creeped me out here – and yet, there is a tenderness, which makes the tale all the more chilling.
That is a great story – seriously creepy – especially the cat – chilling!
That’s a true story about the cat part. Only it belonged to a family my friend was babysitting for — the parents left and she was in charge of the newborn kittens –so I went over and did all I could to save them. When I left, I told her to let the parents know NOT to put them back with the mother. But she said the parents came home, and paid no attention to what I said. The rest of the story did happen, of course. I’ll never forget.
Very eerie and sinister, and excellent.
Marge – just read about the cat – honestly, there’s nothing that we can write that is stranger than reality!
So very intriguing…