It was full of bees! They emerged with a furious buzz, attacking her and stinging her ruthlessly. In a state of unreasoning terror, she fled, running up the stairs to the bedroom. She quickly locked the door behind her, isolating herself from the malevolent insects.
Left to their own devices, the bees zipped around the house, gathering any valuables they could find, and vandalizing everything else. They smashed dishes, burned furniture, stole silverware and broke windows. Laughing in their mysterious, buzzing tongue, they delivered a bee-related pun, and flew away, never to return.
She opened the envelope and screamed.
"I won! I won!" Curt's ears perked up and he looked over to see Miriam jumping up and down, holding a letter in her hand. He shrugged and went back to reading the daily news.
"Curt! Darling! Did you hear? I won!" Miriam continue to shout. Her wrinkled hands clutched the now crumbled letter. The perm her hairdresser had so fastidiously created fell slightly with each jump.
"I heard." Curt sighed. The Red Sox had lost last night and even though he had watched the entire game, he read through the article.
"Don't you...
She opened the envelope and screamed. Sweepstakes? Her? She never dreamed it could happen, but there it was, after countless magazine subscriptions to periodicals she never intended to read: Guns and Ammo, Creative Quilting, Fantasy Football Insider. Piles of these damned things lined the hallways and rooms of her small, two-bedroom house.
She didn't intend to read the magazines, but at the same time, she couldn't part with them, just in case, just in case one day she could sell them or donate them or look something up in one of them that might, just might be of some importance...
She opened the envelope and screamed.
"He's coming to get me!" Keri shouted, "Zachary's coming to get me!"
Keri wanted nothing more than to leave her life in New York and move South to be with Zachary.They dated briefly, he proposed, she said no, and that was it. It wasn't just that she said no, he wasn't entirely serious and she was only 18.
Keri married Jack a few days before her 25th birthday, and she was completely in love with him. She never forgot Zachary, even on their wedding day. Zachary, or Zak as she called him, was her...
She opened the envelope and screamed.
It wasn't a scream of happiness. It wasn't a scream of surprise. It wasn't the hoped for money that grandma had promised. It wasn't the test results; they wouldn't come for another week.
It was a finger. In the bottom of the envelope. Dry of blood. Shrivelled and pale and a stub, a nub.
She dropped the envelope and scuttled back into a corner, her fist jammed into her jaw. Her eyes wide, she stared at the finger, as it lolled out of the envelope.
She could smell smoke. It had to be a...