It was the way she laughed that made Nathan begin to relax, in spite of the way she looked. The sound of small glass bells he had always heard in her voice whenever her laughter spilled out over the fullness of her lips. And yet there was that certain thing, that undefinable bond, that comes to exist between two people who have shared one another’s lives, bodies, hopes and dreams over so many years that comes to serve as a more reliable recognition of identity than mere surface appearance or voice.

And it was this exact thing which lit up inside of him when Joan laughed, that let Nathan know his Joan was in there somewhere. Without a doubt she had been changed, and not just in appearance. Most likely it was as she said; she couldn’t remain the same and remain alive.

If that’s what she was.

“Dammit Nathan, you never could listen.”

Joan drifted closer, a grayish blue arm reaching out to place her hand over his chest. Nathan’s eyes grew wide as he tried to back away but he was hardly able to move as the pain around his heart grew more intense. When he looked down at Joan’s arm as it pressed first against - and then through - his chest, he noticed he could see through her arm to the floor below.

But then the pain began to recede. And as it did, Joan eased her hand out of her husband’s chest. She lowered her face, which looked as if it had been fashioned out of gray clouds and mist, until it was just inches from Nathan’s. She smiled.

“Would it matter if I told you there would have been an easier way to do this? But then that wouldn’t have been Nathan’s way, would it?”

“Shit, Joan. It really is you.”

But then, as whatever this was continued upward, step by step, the stairs complained less, and whatever was being pulled along behind must have detached itself as Nathan heard the sound of a heavy object tumbling  down the stairs until it landed back on the hard surface below with a loud slapping noise.

By the time The Choice reached the top of the stairs, its form was the same as what Eretha had witnessed at her first meeting, an awkward being fashioned from wrong angles and unrecognizable materials that weren’t meant to fit together in any sort of harmony. It was short, shorter than Nathan by a good foot or more, and the look in its eyes, which were nothing more than twin holes drilled into the face, appeared somewhat sad and tired. 

But then it smiled, and gestured toward the table and chairs.

“Please. Sit. I know this must be confusing for you.”

“Joan? Hey.You told me to step inside and now I’m here. So what is it I’m supposed to do now? Was that really you or was that another trick?”

A dry hissing noise rose up from the shadows at the base of the stairs, followed by what sounded like something very heavy and slick pulling itself across a hard surface. Toward the stairs? Nathan reflexively took a step back, even though he had nowhere to go.

“Shit. I’m gonna die in here.”

He recognized the giggle that greeted his stark end of days declaration, yet at the same time he recognized it as being off, like a familiar musical instrument that was just enough out of key.

The room wasn’t cold, but he felt a chill.

“Sweetness.”

More tears streamed down Nathan’s face as he relived the breath-snatching pain of that moment, remembering the way she had called his name just before he entered the room. It had sounded like a question, like there was something she was about to ask him, but it also sounded a bit surprised.

And yet at this current moment he could feel Joan also standing beside him, even as he saw her body layed out before him at the exact time of her death. Her delicate fingers were once again entwined in his, same as they were on that perfect day spent together on Belle Isle. Except that this time her fingers felt cold, the texture dry and rough. Not like flesh at all but like something…else.

Nathan felt his heart beginning to race.

“The good and the bad, Nathan. The memories only you and I could know because only you and I shared them together. This is me, my love. Despite what your eyes will tell you. Now step inside.”

“What the hell are you, man? I mean really.”

“As I have told you before, we are the handmaidens of Death, our mother. We are the Noctus, and our existence is only to serve her. Now I believe I was explaining to you earlier about a higher purpose before you lost all control.”

“Still haven’t told me what you are, but whatever. Yeah. Purpose. Higher purpose. What about it?”

“They can’t answer you that, Nathan. They don’t know. But I can answer your questions, at least most of them, if you’ll let me.”

“Veronica…”

The door to the box opened wide with a loud metallic creaking as the undecipherable symbols etched on its sides began began to writhe and flow in a serpentine rhythm. The Noctus motioned toward the open portal.

“Our task was simply to reach you. The answers you seek are inside.”

That’s when Nathan heard the soft tug of a familiar voice reaching out to him from the box. It was a voice that made his heart break and overflow at the same time.

“Veronica?”

“It is good you are afraid, but you do not need to be,” said the creature.

“You just crawled out of my clock while turning yourself into a for real spider, and you terrified both my children and my husband. And me. And now you just stood up on two legs and turned yourself into something else that I don’t even know what you are. How am I not gonna be afraid of that?”

“Would you believe me if I told you that we were the one who should actually be afraid? Because it’s true.”
“We? But there is only one of you. What…?”

“We are a singular entity. Simply an expression. But don’t concern yourself about that right now.”
“Whatever the hell you are there is no way…”

“Your name is Lilly, but you do not know who you are. Let me tell you a story that I think might interest you, and then you may have a better idea why I say it is we who should fear you, and not the other way around.”

Then, slowly, it rose up on two of its rear legs as four of the other eight legs began to retract inside of the body, which nearly reached the ceiling when standing upright. The two remaining legs began to gradually redesign themselves into more familiar appeandages that more closely resembled human arms, although noticeably longer with thick black claws in the place of fingers. The eight black eyes remained embedded in the now more human-shaped head atop the body, but the fangs were also retracted into an orifice that somewhat resembled a human mouth although not quite. There were no lips, and a long black tongue eased its way out like a snake toward the terrified pair before the tip somehow splintered into several smaller tongues, making the tongue’s head resemble an active daisy made of dark flesh.

“What in God’s name…”

“God has nothing to do with this, I can assure you,” said the Noctus.

“Now watch closely. Because something is about to happen that you do not want to miss.”

The clock’s ticking stopped. A perfect silence held the room hostage for 10 long seconds, then Lilly and Eretha watched as the smiling black spider that had faithfully kept time for the past two years ever since Lilly picked it up at the Target because she thought it was cute began to force its way out of the clock’s plastic cover as it rapidly assumed the size and shape of an actual spider that measured more than two feet across.

Lilly held Eretha close as she started to scream. Suddenly Hannibal appeared at the entrance to the kitchen, watching in disbelief and terror, squeezing his tiny son’s hand in his own and shaking his head back and forth.

“Dad!” yelled Nathan, pointing at the eight-legged creature as it dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.

“Dad!”

That was just the beginning.

“I see. But there are other memories of Lilly, yes?”

Nathan gave a confused look at the floor.

“What other memories are you talkin about?”

“The memories that cause you pain have overshadowed everything else, and that is not unusual for your kind. Pain is heavy. But there are other memories that have been suppressed. Memories between memories. Memories of who your mother was before her descent.”

Nathan shook his head.

“Naw. Ain’t no memory of another better Lilly because that woman is a fiction. Never existed. I was there, and I know who she was. I know because…”

Nathan never saw the long, grayish tentacle reaching out from the Noctus in the center of the trilogy, its skin slick and greasy. At the end of the tentacle was a thin, shiny black needle of an appendage that smoothly inserted itself into Nathan’s forehead before he was even aware.

“Memories between memories.”

This is ME, Little Girl. This darkness is ME. I thought you should know who your Maura really is before I’m gone. You didn’t like when I let people see the costume of my flesh, when I tried to become more like you, so maybe it’s better you remember me as I am. As all witches are. We are the sisters of darkness between the light. I saw something in you, Donatella. I thought the time would come when you could join me completely. Could join us. I loved you, Donnie. But love is the one thing that can kill a witch quicker than any other. I always knew that, but I wasn’t willing to accept it.

https://afrofantasydetroit.substack.com/.../the-witch...

The first thought that crossed Nathan’s mind, once he had finished throwing up all over his newly-scrubbed wooden floor with the stinking remains of yesterday’s spaghetti plus the tuna fish he’d had for lunch, was how could it be possible that something - some things - that looked as horrible as what was standing in front of him could have been delivered by a mother. A mother’s love was a powerful thing to be sure, which explained the phrase ‘a face that only a mother could love’, but surely any mother could have been forgiven if she opted to reach for whatever means were necessary to erase any evidence that such creatures had been delivered from her womb.

Even if that mother was death.

.

Reflexively she tried to scream for what felt like hours, to the point where her parched throat ached from the fruitless effort. Then she simply went silent and limp, waiting for an ending she assumed must be on its way.

That’s when she heard the voice, scratching inside her skull like a rat trying to eat its way out.

Positioned in the corner was a huge metallic-looking box that reached nearly to the ceiling. Around its circumference from top to bottom were embossed numerous odd markings and symbols, some of which appeared to be alive with movement and repeated changes of shape and design. Attached to the front of the box was a large door which opened itself wide to expose a pulsating darkness…and the same hellish sounds he had heard coming from the phone when he had tried to call Eretha.

Standing in front of the door were three perversions of flesh and design that caused Nathan to regurgitate with a force that caused him to scream in pain at the same time. One of them cocked its head to the side and twisted its facial features into a horrible mockery of a smile.

“Greetings, Nathan. We are the Noctus, and we will be your guides.”

“The what?”

“We are the three handmaidens of Death, Our Mother.”

Since Donatella could always see Maura, she didn’t notice anything different at first and was about to ask her “Watch what?”, but then she noticed the shocked expression on the white girl’s face who had just witnessed Maura somehow just …appear right in front of her. The girl with Asian features hadn’t noticed because at that moment she was looking over her shoulder trying to locate the origin of an angry shout she heard barking out of the crowd. White girl slowed down, shook her elbow loose from her friend, and was raising her arm to point at Maura, who slowly shook her head in warning as she placed a bejeweled finger to her lips.

Shhhhhhhh.

White girl’s expression changed from one of fear to confusion and then faded to blank.

“Hey, are you OK?” her friend asked, her attention refocused after feeling her hand being shoved away from the elbow. White girl nodded, her eyes a bit cloudy.

“I think we better get you home,” she said.

Nathan felt a deep chill creeping over him like a sheet of ice being pulled over the blanket as he lay in bed. He hung up the phone, unable to tolerate the inhuman wails that struggled to reach out to him from whatever hell they were trapped in. He lay there in the flickering darkness, the images from a soundless television screen at the foot of his bed his only company as he stared into a space beyond the confines of his bedroom. Waiting. His breathing became slow and measured, as one who was accustomed to dealing with threats in a particular way. He had no doubt the threat he sensed was real, but there was something else. Just…something. His body tensed as his large, scarred fists clinched in anticipation, but an unfamiliar sensation of fear was scratching at the edge of his consciousness, warning him that whatever preparations for battle he might be making, they weren’t enough.

The story behind the brand new home went like this; the pair had been walking in tense silence down the sidewalk in front of the dilapidated house that leaned uncomfortably to the left like a drunk. They had just finished having an argument a few blocks back about whether they should get a puppy – Donatella for, Maura against - when Maura suddenly stopped, her eyes lighting up. Donatella knew this could either be a very good thing or a very bad thing, so her voice was cautious and a bit edgy when she broke the silence.

“What?” she said.

“We’re home,” answered Maura.

And so just like that it was as if the argument had never happened. But there never was a puppy.

It wasn’t the first time Maura had made that declaration about finding home. They had lived in any number of odd circumstances for days, weeks or months before deciding it was time to move on. But the affection that warmed her voice about the drunken house was the first time Maura had given any hint that this could be a more permanent stay. She used her magic to fully decorate the inside (the outside remained the same so as not to draw attention) with all sorts of colorful paintings that never hosted the same scene for more than an hour, glass sculptures that restlessly twisted, stretched and experimented in and out of new and different shapes and other artwork that similarly refused to behave. Just like Maura.

Where had she learned about all that?

Anyway, on that day of Virgil’s homegoing service Raymond was all prepared to go back to being true to form. I could see his fist balled up and ready to pound on those doors, when a loud screeching noise came from the church basement. It got louder and louder and lasted for what felt like an hour but couldn’t have been more than a minute, with everybody pinching up their face and clapping their hands tight over their ears. Pastor Simms had his eyes squeezed shut, arms raised high as he faced the ceiling. His mouth was moving rapidly but I couldn’t hear whether he was praying or something else was going on.

Then it stopped. And then came the laughter, only it wasn’t the sort of laughter that would make anybody feel like smiling. It felt like maggots were in my ears.

“It’s so nice to be remembered,” came a voice from somewhere beneath the church, sounding wet and like sickness itself. But also sounding familiar.

Jesus…

Virgil.

“Little girl. Are you sure there isn’t anything else you want outta here? ‘Cause you can have anything you want, and don’t worry about none of them. You can see they ain’t movin’, right? And they won’t remember a thing about you or me once we’re gone and they pick up where they left off.”

“But how did you…? Did you hurt them?”

Maura laughed, then took four steps off the counter right onto the air, where she stood looking down at her friend with a look of amusement before slowly floating down beside her.

“Just because I’m a witch don’t mean I like to hurt people. That’s just the way they make it seem like in the movies. C’mon, let’s go.”

You know he saved now, so don’t none of that matter. God got him, and he got us. Amen!

Maybe. But whatever pastor was involved with for all those years out in ‘The World’ had left its mark. You could see that mark working on him the day he delivered words at the service for Virgil. I don’t wanna say he preached, because something about how he was saying what he was saying made it different. The words had the wrong feel to them, the wrong intent. It’s hard to explain, but I knew they weren’t meant for comfort, or at least not the right kind of comfort.

Because wherever Virgil is right now, Lord, we know that perhaps he is better off. As are we. That is, for having done our best to keep him and his family close to your path and your light. We know that he was a child of yours as he was a child of Shepherd’s Rest, even if he seemed not always so sure. In his transition, we pray that he will find and accept the answers that eluded him in this life.

Amen.

That’s when the room got cold. Then came those noises…

It wasn’t until a full three days later when Donatella finally realized that nobody else could see Maura except for her. They had been spending much of their time on Belle Isle having all the fun in the world that two young girls could have. Sometimes they would run ‘round and ‘round the huge white marble sculpture of a fountain at the center of the park playing a form of tag where they would change direction as soon as one would tag the other. Other times they would just sit anywhere near the river, knees tucked up under their chins, and stare out at the river without saying a word. Without needing to. At night Maura would always be the one to find a safe place to sleep where they couldn’t be found until the next day. There was never a need, time, or, quite frankly, any willingness to care about the strange, questioning reactions and expressions that surrounded their antics like spectators.

The Black Box will return in two weeks. Meanwhile I hope you enjoy an old favorite, The Resurrection, Part 1:  

Then came that day when Virgil got himself killed. Saw it myself. Virgil always caught the bus to and from wherever he went because he didn’t own a car. Bus let him off right over there on the corner. It was a nice day in the springtime so I was sitting on my porch enjoying it. Had a day off. Virgil starts to cross the street and is about halfway across when this dented-up dark red Camaro comes screeching outta nowhere around that corner as the bus pulled away. I still can’t figure why I hadn’t seen or heard that Camaro before it just showed up, but I saw where it was racing down toward Virgil, almost like it was aiming at him, and I jumped up outta my folding chair hollering at Virgil as loud as I could, trying to get him to run, jump, fly, whatever to get out the way. But it was too late.
But sometimes death can play tricks on you…

Feeling like maybe she was being laughed at, Donatella snatched her hand away and started to run/walk down the street in the other direction from the girl with wind chimes in her voice. She could feel the tears trying to force their way through the corners of her eyes once again, but she denied their efforts. Already she knew the weakness of tears, and there could be no weakness in her from this day forward.

“Wait!”

Donatella didn’t wait, nor did she look back. However she did hear the rapid approach of footsteps gaining on her before she felt the light squeeze of fingers on her shoulder, and she slowed her escape.

“Girl, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…look, can we just start over? I didn’t mean to say nothing to hurt you or nothin like that. I just wanna be your friend. I know your name ain’t OK. That ain’t nobody’s name.”

Donatella slowed her pace further until she came to a complete stop near the end of the block. The girl’s hand was still on her shoulder, light as a butterfly, as Donatella closed her eyes tight and lowered her head. Her small shoulders slumped.

“I don’t know where I’m going,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

"Understand, you are not only who you are after you are made flesh, Eretha. That is simply a chapter, and a very short chapter at that. Who you are is everything and everyone you were up until that chapter begins, and then you are also who and what you will become. "

Donatella had seen this macabre dance far too many times for one so young to the point where she had gone blind to it all, even when it was happening right in front of her. Sometimes she would chart an escape route around her parents to her tiny bedroom at the end of the hall. There she would quietly close the door and then crawl into bed where she would scrunch herself into a tight ball underneath the sheets covered with cartoon characters. But other times she would sit there in her perch at the breakfast table and pretend to watch the spectacle, her eyes dull and lifeless as copper pennies found on the street.

Slowly, Eretha removed her arm from in front of her eyes and forced herself to look upward at a horror that defied description. Like Simon, or what had become of him, Death’s features were impermanent and constantly in a state of flux and redesign, never fully satisfied. But those features, combinations of otherworldly flesh and bone, were far beyond the ability of even the most gifted imagination to adequately construct. Whereas Simon’s broken face still, at least with effort, bore a vague resemblance to the man he had been before, Death resembled nothing at all. 

Absolutely nothing.

“You broke my bowl, daddy!” the child screeched at an unholy volume that shook the entire apartment building to where doors were timidly opened up and down the hallway as neighbors peeked out and regarded one another with expressions of fear and questioning.

But none of those expressions could match the level of fear that had now taken up residence inside the home of the James family. Well, maybe just in Ellis, who stared wide-eyed at his only child as an unrecognizable horror that had somehow invaded his home. His hands hung limply by his sides, fingers fidgeting as he began to tremble. His mouth opened to speak but there were no words, only a dry whispering of air that spilled out.

Fantasma, however, was smiling. Almost like a proud mother whose little girl finally delivered the performance of a lifetime at the school recital. 

On either side of the road, reaching as far into the distance as the road itself, Eretha witnessed rows of deformed and decomposing bodies hanging from all variety of crosses; some made of wood, others steel or iron, while still others were decorated with flashing bulbs like what one might see on the Las Vegas strip.

Then she felt a grip on her shoulder from behind. Her head turned as a reflex, and Eretha saw the face of Death for the first time. She felt herself crumple into the middle of the road, like a paper bag being squeezed by an angry fist. She screamed. Death smiled.

“Walk with me.”

There was nothing about Donatella as a child that gave even a hint of whose child she was, or who she might become once she had left her painful childhood behind. She was a small-boned, coffee and cream-colored Black girl who was forced to wear comically large black frame glasses so that she could bear witness to the doings of a world in which she had very little interest.

No, that’s not quite right. Actually, Donatella was very interested in the world around her, just not the world that was immediately around her. Because the sordid details of that particular world were the sort that placed her inside an off-balance picture frame containing a drunken mother and happy-go-lucky father whose moods traveled back and forth between the seasons at whim, sometimes within the confines of a single day – or even hour.

That was the last thing Eretha heard before she once again felt a foreign entity seizing control of her mind, only this time there was a noticeable roughness and brutality to the action, almost like rape, as if Death desired to emphasize the fact that Eretha had no choice in the matter. Death could do whatever she wanted to whomever she wanted whenever and however she wanted; to try and establish any sort of conditions on how and when one would meet her, to assume that any form of communication with Death could be misconstrued as some form of negotiation?

No. One does not negotiate with Death. One submits.

Her voice was no longer raping the insides of my skull, but having this thing toy with me using Mom’s voice was far worse. I resisted the urge to lunge at the swirling mass of flesh and fluid that the witch had become because I guessed that’s what she wanted. Also because I could hear the memory of my real mother’s voice warning me against making a decision that could get me killed – or worse. I had never considered the possibility that there could be much of anything worse than death, but as I experienced this surreal scenario taking place during what was supposed to be my lunch break, it occurred to me that death might be far preferable to whatever kind of eternal pain this thing might have the power to inflict

The Choice didn’t look at all like what Eretha imagined when she saw him on the other side of the portal. The small, slightly deformed being who stood there awaiting her arrival reminded her of the Wizard of Oz; a booming powerful voice that masked a shrinking, insecure little man hiding behind an oversized mask. His body looked as if it had been fashioned from the root of a tree; nothing about him being quite in proportion, not straight or even, but bent and contorted into odd painful angles that almost made Eretha feel sorry for him. How could such a powerful entity that had endured practically since before the beginnings of mankind or the Earth itself be so…ugly?

Then she slowly raised one leg to where it appeared she was balancing herself on the other like a stork, that horrible grin fixed in place as if it had been stapled there. Effortlessly, she raised the other leg as well so that both knees were pulled up to her chest as she remained suspended in mid-air. Her arms were outstretched, the clawed fingers of both hands pointing downward, making herself resemble a huge bird of prey. Next, she folded her legs to where it looked as if she was seated on a bench – except there was no bench.

“You’re mad,” said Eretha.

She could feel his smile beginning to bloom inside of her like a poisonous flower.

“So it’s time to meet Death. Come, she’s been waiting.”

The woman gave me a mock questioning look, almost like a clown’s mask with an upside down frown painted across the bottom of her face. She shook her head, pretending she didn’t understand the question. This time, maybe because my anger was fueling my adrenaline, I managed to snatch my arm free of her grasp as I took a couple steps back.

“You called my name. You said ‘I see you’. That’s what…how do you know my damned name? How do you know my name?”

The upside down frown stretch itself slowly upward into a grotesque parody of a smile where the corners of her mouth were now so high it was a freakish near-impossible achievement that made me want to scream. It was no longer gentle. Her teeth, like her nails, were thick, dirty and sharp, and a thick blackish tongue snaked around behind them inside her mouth as if preparing to strike.

I remember when Death was born.

There are those misguided sheep who believe it was Life who came first, but that is not true. I was there. I have always been there. And I know that Death brought herself into being long before Life in anticipation of Life’s creation. Because Death is as wise as she is cunning, and has always had an understanding of the future and how to prepare. Death knew that Life would require a counterbalance, but that if she allowed Life to exist for any length of time in advance of her arrival, then Life would have the power to set the terms of Death’s own existence - or perhaps to prevent her entrance altogether into the realm of space and time. Because then there would only be Life.

How do I know all this? Because I am the one who created Life. Yes. It’s true. Life was created by Choice. But Death? Death birthed herself.

https://open.substack.com/pub/afrofantasydetroit/p/the-black-box-part-13-the-origins?r=4bk73a&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

She was smiling, but the smile was gentle. Nothing like the Halloween pumpkin expression she wore on her face a few minutes ago. The warmth of expression, which contrasted so sharply with everything else, threw me off and made me confused.

“I see you,” she said, her voice sounding like a paper bag full of whispers.

I tried to snatch my arm away, but that only added an exclamation point to the pain as she squeezed harder while her nails dug into the fabric of my sportscoat. I glanced down as a reflex to see what the hell kind of nails this woman had and they didn’t look like anything that should belong on a human being. They were filthy, caked with what I thought was dirt but could have been something else, and they were at least an inch long. And they didn’t extend from the top of her fingers like what you see on folks. Instead, each finger and her thumb transformed from mottled brown flesh into a hard, sharpened claw. 

“I see you, Marcellus James.”

And then she was surrounded by thick tentacles of multi-colored smoke, writhing and weaving in slow-motion like large snakes engaged in some strange form of dance. The darkness inside the box, the portal, and Simon had all disappeared. Eretha could feel the fear once again displacing the anger inside her at a rapid rate.

“Where am I?” she whispered, as she looked downward to see that she was suspended in mid-air - if this was air at all.

Soon the familiar smell of cinnamon returned, followed by what sounded like a wind blowing through a large seashell.

“Where am I?” Eretha asked again, this time louder.

The laughter returned in waves of echo, followed by the voice, which was wrapped in mockery.

“You demanded the answer to my existence. I could have simply told you the story as we took a stroll on the other side of the portal, which is what I had actually planned to do all along. But I agree, that probably would have been more boring than the answer I plan to provide right now. Because to tell you a thing can never quite match the power of showing you a thing, don’t you think? And just as you were inside the box - and actually still are - I am now inside of you. Where you can experience this wonderful tale so much better! Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?”

“Simona…” she whispered. And then, a little louder, “I don’t see Simona.”

Moments later, a heavyset woman with waist-length braids the color of storm clouds who had been seated nearby stood up, raised an arm and pointed an accusing finger at the stumbling procession of small beings that continued to exit the mouth of the egg.

“Those…those aren’t…what are those…?”

Soon the fearful chorus of anxious mothers grew in volume and rage as the egg’s deceit made itself plain. One fled the crowd and dove into the river, determined to deliver her rage directly to the alien craft’s front doorstep, but before she made it more than a few yards something yanked and tossed her backward onto the island like a rag doll. Her breath exited her body in a painful wheeze as the crowd went silent. For the longest moment everyone stared at the woman as she struggled to breathe normally again, and to make sense of what had just happened. And then the message came:

We make them better. Return to you better. Want make everything better. Motherlove.

The thing that had been Simona looked up at her mother through liquid black eyes, took Faye’s hand with long pale brown tentacles, and smiled.

“Home,” it said.

Although shaken by the fearsome touch she had experienced when reaching out to her husband, Eretha nevertheless remained determined to get an answer that would instruct whether to go through that door to another world or turn around and take her chances trying to find her way back home.

“Do you trust me, Simon?”

The persistent silence, which snatched each of their words from the air with a hunger as soon as they were uttered, was growing more intense and more threatening. Eretha felt her heart beginning to beat faster, not in response to the quiet, but in growing fear of whatever had the power to make that silence so absolute and so immediate.

“Death is a choice,” whispered Simon.

“Yes, you said that.”

Another long pause.

“But if you don’t choose death, then death chooses you. And that is so much worse, Eretha. So much worse.”

To Faye, Simona’s mother, the creatures gathering in her backyard were something that should not exist anywhere outside of a bad dream. She felt herself begin to tremble as she held her daughter close, determined to protect her only child however she could. But then Simona tilted her head to the side as she leaned forward.

Simona was seeing something else entirely. What she saw were large, multi-colored parrots with feathers so brightly colored they seemed electric. Parrots had always been Simona’s favorite bird, but she knew enough to know they didn’t belong in Michigan – and parrots never grew that big. She started to raise the question, but then…

“And we have been waiting so long.”

Those were the last words Simon said for a long time as I followed the pale glow of his image through the twists and turns in the dark as we kept going down, always down; sometimes feeling my way around tight corners with what felt like a cold rock face to my left and a sheer drop to my right, other times picking my way down steps that I could barely see. Every so often he would turn to look back, I guess to make sure I was still following him (where else would I go? I was lost), but then he would just turn back around and keep pushing forward at a pace like he was late for something.

https://open.substack.com/pub/afrofantasydetroit/p/the-black-box-part-10-eretha-goes?r=4bk73a&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

But the flock of raggedy-winged creatures that were now crowding into the backyard just beyond the porch didn’t look like any sort of bird that Faye had ever seen. They were all a dirty grayish black, with eyes that were as black and soulless as those of a shark. Measuring a head taller than Simona, their deformed bodies were semi-transparent, flickering erratically in and out of being like a broken electric sign. None of them made a sound as they continued to land on the grass, staring hungrily through the glass at Faye and her daughter as the two moved closer together.

But then Simona did a funny thing.

https://afrofantasydetroit.substack.com/p/the-egg-part-viii

Hey guys, I hope you’re ready for part 9 of The Black Box, a horror story that will haunt your imagination. In this chapter we learn more about Nathan Bohannon, Eretha’s younger brother and father of the twins James and Freddy. Nathan fears for the lives of his family when he calls his sister, only to hear the winds of death answer the phone.

Why would the birds leave us now? Was the question no one asked out loud, but that was etched onto grim and pained faces drawn tight, working to resist the temptation and familiarity of failure.

But when the birds returned, sounding like the clarions of an undiscovered hell, their grotesque and twisted forms defining the winged shadows of a rage long-suppressed, that was no longer the question. Now the question was simple:

Why?

James knew I was telling the truth about that being Auntie Ree’s voice coming from the box, but that didn’t matter because he didn’t want to believe it. There was no way this could be real, and so he went straight into self-protect mode. That was James. We were twins, but we weren’t the same.

“Naw,” he said, already starting to back down the steps of the porch.

I started to get angry because I knew we didn’t have time for this. Hell yeah I was scared, probably more scared than James was, but I knew the more time we wasted trying to deny what we didn’t have time to deny, the more trouble our aunt could be in.

Every business has a tale to tell. And our story so far has been anything but ordinary! We navigated our share of stumbling blocks along the way (especially in the early days). But when we pulled together as a team, there was always one constant—the drive to perfect our craft and become a recognized name in our field. Even as our company has grown, we've never lost our desire to learn. And there are lessons to be learned with each new challenge.

 
Hey guys, get ready for part 7 of The Black Box, a horror story that will haunt your imagination. In our last chapter Eretha saw what she thought was her dead husband Simon beckoning to her inside the box. But how did he get there, and why? Find out what Simon saw on the last night of his life before being lured into another dimension. 

The Egg continues with Part 5!  A Detroit Free Press reporter has been assigned to find out what is the story with this mysterious egg the size of a building that has been hovering over teh Detroit River. Just when he is getting bored and starts to think the assignment may have been a bust, something happens. Something he can't believe. Part 5 of The Egg captures the tension, fear, and hope of a world on the brink of the unknown.

Hey guys, step into part 6 of the chilling world of The Black Box, a horror story that will haunt your imagination. Find out what happens when Eretha is lured to step inside the dark mystery of the box…and is reunited with her dead husband. Or is he…?

The Egg continues with Part 4!  A lifelong diarist finds himself compelled to document the extraordinary when a mysterious egg appears, changing the world in ways most refuse to acknowledge. As the anniversary of the egg’s arrival—known as The Opening—approaches, he reflects on all that has happened; the loss of old friendships, and the growing sense of unease in his community. With Day 365 looming and uncertainty in the air, Part 4 of The Egg story captures the tension, fear, and hope of a world on the brink of the unknown.
https://afrofantasydetroit.substack.com/p/the-egg-part-4

A lifelong diarist finds himself compelled to document the extraordinary when a mysterious egg appears, changing the world in ways most refuse to acknowledge. As the anniversary of the egg’s arrival—known as The Opening—approaches, he reflects on all that has happened; the loss of old friendships, and the growing sense of unease in his community. With Day 365 looming and uncertainty in the air, Part 3 of The Egg story captures the tension, fear, and hope of a world on the brink of the unknown.
https://keithsscifimusings.substack.com/p/the-egg-part-iii

A lifelong diarist finds himself compelled to document the extraordinary when a mysterious egg appears, changing the world in ways most refuse to acknowledge. As the anniversary of the egg’s arrival—known as The Opening—approaches, he reflects on all that has happened; the loss of old friendships, and the growing sense of unease in his community. With Day 365 looming and uncertainty in the air, Part 2 of The Egg story captures the tension, fear, and hope of a world on the brink of the unknown

To read all episodes of The Egg, you can visit the series at my AfroFantasy Detroit Substack.

A lifelong diarist finds himself compelled to document the extraordinary when a mysterious egg appears, changing the world in ways most refuse to acknowledge. As the anniversary of the egg’s arrival—known as The Opening—approaches, he reflects on all that has happened; the loss of old friendships, and the growing sense of unease in his community. With Day 365 looming and uncertainty in the air, this first scene of The Egg captures the tension, fear, and hope of a world on the brink of the unknown.

You can read all episodes of The Egg on my AfroFantasy Detroit Substack.

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What makes Detroit a scifi city? What is a Detroit fantasy tale? If you're a regular reader of Detroit Stories Quarterly then perhaps these are questions that have spun around inside your mind from time to time. As you walk the streets, stalk the clubs, bounce to the beats, or simply figure out new and interesting ways to improvise your existence within the confines of a re-imagined 'D', these are the questions that keeps whispering, tapping you on the shoulder, scratching at the door of your other consciousness.
One of these days, you will have to answer. And when you do...

Photo by 
Yana Korneevets-Vydrenkova  on 
Scopio

Like most things, horror fiction evolves. From Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King and Clive Barker, the things that terrify us seem to change as the environment around us changes. Or as the storytellers change.

One of the more enjoyable things to witness has been the increasing number of Black science fiction and horror stories to appear in recent years on the smaller screen, and it looks like another one is lining up to premier on April 9 that could be a big deal. Of course, you can't always tell by the trailers, but if the trailers are anywhere close to what we can expect, this is one that will scare the hell outta some folks.

All I'll say about Them  for now is that the history of American racism is proving to be one of the most fertile sources for horror stories in a long time. And when you think about it, doesn't that make sense? How much more horrific can you get than the truth?

So we're gonna tune in, and maybe you should too. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Excerpted from "Where Does that Alley Go?"
By Keith A. Owens

The Thirsty Plants

Normally, Peg and I leave around 4pm, to give us a chance to get back home to Ann Arbor, and Matt locks up at the end of the day. But on this particular night, we had a late meeting.

 So there I was in the big conference room—this was later in October after it had gotten dark, so I guess it was around 9 p.m. —and as I was standing up to stretch and gather my thoughts, I heard a rustling sound coming from the alley. I was facing the whiteboard where we had written notes, so my mind was still scrolling back over the discussion. I thought maybe it was a couple of dogs scuffling. Sounded like they were probably pretty big...

 Then came a horrible shrieking sound unlike anything I had ever heard before. I whirled around but couldn’t see anything outside the windows. Peg came rushing into the room and we just looked at each other. 

 “Tom, what was that?” 

 I just stood there doing quick calculations inside my head; should we drop everything and hightail it to the parking lot? Would we have enough time to get to the car and get out of there?

 “Is the parking lot gate closed?” Peg asked, reading my mind as usual. We both knew that getting out that way was no longer an option, because by the time the electronic gate opened wide enough for us to drive out, whatever was out there would have time to reach the lot—and we’d be trapped inside the car.

 “Turn out the lights,” Peg said, and I remember wondering how she sounded as calm as she did. I also remember feeling very thankful, because so long as both of us kept our heads we would have a better chance of figuring this out together. 

 I turned out the lights.

 Moments later, another shriek tore the night as we stared out the windows—only this one was much longer and sounded closer. We felt something crash against the side of the building. Whatever it was, it had to be big to shake the building like that. At first we couldn’t quite see all that was going on—because whatever was happening was just outside the view of our windows.

 Gradually we were able to get clearer glimpses of the action as the struggle moved closer. What we saw first was a thick, ropey branch whip itself around in front of us, then raise itself up to where it was illuminated by the lights in the alley. That’s when we saw that the branch was wrapped tightly around a large, lobster-looking creature that was struggling ferociously to get free. Then the branch kind of flexed, and slammed the thing into the ground so hard that it practically exploded.

 I recognized the splattered mess of meat and broken shell as one of those critters from the deep pool that had been terrorizing us for so long. I also recognized that telltale coloring on the branch... Green and purple with that yellow stripe. I have to admit that gave me the shivers, because how in the world...?

 But then it tapped on the window, and that’s when my heart started to pump even faster. I felt like I had been transported to a world my imagination couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Nothing about this could be happening. And yet, there we were, Peg and I, forcing each other to witness the surreal becoming quite real indeed. I almost wished Peg hadn’t come down to the Green Garage that day, not only for her own safety, but because if I had told her about my day later that night she would have told me, with absolute certainty, that I must have fallen asleep and had a bad dream. And I would have been so happy to accept that. To just erase it all and hit reset in the morning.

 Tap. Tap. Tap.