Lazy Lion
Used Books & More
146 South Main Street
Fuquay-Varina, NC 27526
(919) 552-9639
info@lazylionbooks.com
Monday 10 to 3
Tues -
Wed 10 to 5
Thu - Fri 10 to 8
Saturday 10 to 5
Closed Sunday
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First Annual Fuquay
Fright Fest Short Story Contest Winners
Second Prize Winner!
Metamorphosis
by Joseph S. Coleman
My wife’s scream woke me. I raised my head in time to see the heel of her
bare foot vanish around the corner of the open bedroom doorway and then
thundering downstairs with the suggestion of a stifled scream in her
breathing. The front door slammed.
I reached out and saw my hand. The skin was pale gray, with cracks forming
small plates that looked like mud baked in a drought. I turned the palm
toward my face. The flat of my hand was almost normal, but toward the curve
away from the pads of the fingers and palm grew deadened and revealed the
same.
As I flexed my fingers I heard crackle as a flow of dead flakes fluttered
onto the sheets.
When I placed my palm against my thigh a few large flakes fell away. I tried
to lift a flat chunk below the flakes and blood streamed into the gap. A
pain shot along the separation. When I let go, it fell back into place and
the pain stopped. This fissure was much deeper than the filigree of cracks
on my hand.
I brushed away flakes of myself from sheet and rolled up onto one knee,
placed one foot onto the bare floor. The mirror above the dresser showed me
an apparition that mimicked my moves and my breathing stopped. The image
shifted its weight onto the floor and drew the other leg from the mattress
to stand. It wore my gym shorts and tee shirt with a reversed version of my
college insignia.
It was covered with dying remains of my skin, broken into tiny tectonic
plates, grinding against each other as I moved. I laid my fingertips against
the glass and it reached out to meet me. I peered into a vaguely familiar
face. The nose was almost gone, replaced by ramps of skin that blended it to
the cheeks. The brows were gone. I lifted my hand to brush the hair from my
eyes, and the foremost hairs came free, revealing little white tufts of what
had been roots.
I breathed again, uneasily.
I blinked. The image did the same with flat lids without lashes, and the
dark eyes they revealed were devoid of white or color.
A piece of skin protruded at the crest of my cheek beside one dark eye. I
pinched it and pulled. There was no pain and no blood. It came free,
revealing a spot a little larger than my thumb. The skin below lacked hair
or pores or anything else I could associate with skin, but with a color like
a green olive.
I felt movement beneath my skin and peeled away my shirt. Something moved
inside like an animal in a sack—suggesting form but giving only motion.
I sank into the chair beside the bed, felt movement through my insides. I
looked in the mirror and waited.
I was alone, and I had no idea what I was about to become.
But I was afraid.
©2003 Joseph S.
Coleman
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