Tag: animal abuse

All Stories, General Fiction, Historical

The Sound That Nothing Makes by Alain Kerfs

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Stephens Island, New Zealand, January 1894

A small brown bird, mouse-like in size and attitude, tucks under clumps of wind grass, scrapes delicate ruts in moist ground. Nearby ocean spray cloaks shore rocks and humpback blows punctuate the sea surface.

A foreign sound. The bird stops, more curious than afraid, peers past grass blades. On a rocky clearing, motion. An upright creature on sturdy legs, with arms capable of lifting and pulling and throwing. More than a dozen of these creatures, different sizes, dispersing into recently erected wooden structures beneath a tall column, cloud-white, capped with a small sun that flares out into the grey mist.

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All Stories, Horror

George and the Horse by Jazeen Hollings

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Huddled in the dark, the three children shook at the sight of the black horse. It’s head, bashed in from madness, left a bloody smear along the splintered barn wall. It’s body was too still on the dusty floor. For Walter, the blond-haired boy of four, it was just a rigid, mountainous shadow. It frightened him to watch the beast, the devil and his illness finally take hold of the animal. The silence that followed that was unbearable, unclear. Walter felt that something was very wrong but his innocence would not allow him to understand the stillness of the mare. As his unease grew, consuming his little heart, he buried his head into his older sister’s arms for relief.

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