Beast

Driving along country roads, I saw the beast eating from knocked-over bins.

Walking at night with a headlamp in rural England, deer eyes often glinted before they scattered. A pair of eyes, larger and lower than a deer’s, glimmered in the hedgerow. I watched them as I passed.

I couldn’t sleep. I walked to the coast. At the cliffs, I aimed my camera into the dark. The flash exploded. For a millisecond the beast slunk, mouth open, staring. The developed photo revealed only the slick wet pebbles of the beach; everything else was black.

Catacombs

I awoke in the catacombs, on the ground, with my trousers and underwear at my ankles with blood running from my head. The ancient stone walls were covered in graffiti, and the only source of light was a camping lantern. 

Next to me lay a large stuffed military backpack and two carrier bags full of bottles of liquor. Further away, I heard two people arguing in French.

Then, in the distance, I noticed the piles of human remains: a tilted skull in front of a huge pile of dusty brown bones. The bonepiles stretched as far as I could see.  





Oliver Land’s work has appeared in Hobart Pulp, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Expat Press, Apocalypse Confidential, Spectra Poets, and Burial Magazine. He is the author of the novella-in-flash Dissolve and the poetry collection White Light Fades. He serves as the editor of Plague Circus Press.

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