Read Online Midian Unmade by Joseph Nassise - Free Book Online Page B

in the field and she wept, because she knew that she was destined to lose yet another family.
    *   *   *
    Just before dawn, Asteria, blood-slicked and exhausted, slid through the window that overlooked her bed and dropped onto her mattress. Immediately upon hitting that bouncy surface, several hundred pounds of muscle crushed down upon her and held fast her arms and legs. She felt metal encircle her wrists, binding them together. A m é lange of voices shouted commands and the lights flicked on throughout the trailer.
    Someone yelled, “Oh my God,” and another blizzard of commands and legal rights engulfed Asteria. She picked out enough individual orders to realize her captors wanted her on her feet, so she stood.
    She glanced around the room and her heart shriveled. Police surrounded her, and police could mean only one thing: Amy had surrendered.
    An officer covered Asteria’s nude form with an oversized blanket and two others marched her into the living room, where Amy sat, also handcuffed, beside a man in a navy suit—some sort of detective, Asteria guessed.
    Amy looked up, but refused to meet Asteria’s eyes.
    â€œWhere’s the pitchfork, Amy?” Asteria asked as she was led through the room. “Where’s the pitchfork?”
    Tears streamed down Amy’s cheeks.
    â€œAsteria, I grew up. This isn’t a monster movie. It’s real life. You need help. You’re too dangerous.”
    The officers shoved Asteria out the trailer’s door. As she stumbled over the threshold, she called back to her friend, her sister, her mentor, and her betrayer.
    â€œYou grew old, Amy. And we all live in a monster movie every single day of our lives. The only question is how we deal with the monsters we encounter.”
    As Asteria was marched toward a squad car, she heard Amy shouting about Asteria needing extra security and medical care, about her not being human.
    One of the officers that held Asteria firm laughed.
    â€œCrazy bitch,” he murmured.
    The pit suddenly yawned wide open and Asteria felt her fangs sliding to the ready, her barbs shooting to the surface of her skin. She was a failed prot é g é , a broken child, but this was something she could do for Amy.
    â€œAre you ready to meet the pit?” Asteria asked the officer as he pushed her into the backseat of the police cruiser. “Because it’s ready to meet you.”
    The policeman laughed again, turned to his partner, and said, “Sorry. Crazy bitch es .”
    In this moment, for the first time in years, Asteria felt good about what she was, what she did. For the first time in her life, she was glad she would never grow full.
    â€œThank you Amy,” she whispered, understanding that she would never know human kindness again.
    And then she lunged and the blood flowed free and wild, as it was always meant to.

 
    THE ANGEL OF ISISFORD
    Brian Craddock
    The restless heat blazed across the desert, pursued their vehicle and beat upon the top.
    Despite the heat of the day, Upendra thought the desert looked lonely and cold. He wondered what trick of the desert—or the mind—could produce such an effect. The arid landscape was bare but for cornrows of saltbush, and the road was raised up off the desert floor as though to keep travelers from the lonely desperation of the barren landscape.
    And Upendra was glad of it, too: nothing about the terrain invited his appreciation. It reminded him too much of his India, lost long ago to him now, where he was treated as something even lower than the untouchable caste, driven into the deserts and abandoned. He stretched his two sets of arms out over the steering wheel, as though to excise the memories.
    The boy beside him—his traveling companion and, for want of a better description, his friend—smiled wistfully out the windshield up at the impossible vastness of the bright blue sky. Nhuwi, he called himself. His brown skin was