The Locket

Effie felt like the last woman left alive, and maybe she was -- she hadn’t seen another soul since the blizzard began. It had been screaming outside the cabin for more than a month, and all that remained in her larder were a cup of flour and a pinch of yeast, enough to make a small loaf of French bread.

She raised her fingers to her throat and closed them around the locket containing an old photograph of her beloved Jake, who had died in a long ago war before they could wed.

“Soon,” she whispered. “We’ll be together soon.”

Promises

Their gazes met across a crowded room and, just like that, they tumbled into love. A prince, he made her feel like a queen.

"Why now?" she wondered. "Why not last month before my wedding?" She hadn't believed in true love, thinking it fairy tale stuff, so she'd vowed to honor and cherish a kind and gentle man, a dear friend.

"Will you come away with me?" the prince asked. "For a weekend, a year, an eternity?"

She twisted the gold band around her finger, her heart breaking.

"I love you. I always will. But I have promises to keep."

Fulfillment

He was born with a hunger he could not explain. It frightened him, this not knowing, because if he did not know what the hunger was, how could he ever satisfy it?

As he grew to manhood, the hunger grew also. Sometimes it seemed as if it were devouring him; no matter what he ate, he remained gaunt. Only during sex could he forget the hunger.

One day while kissing his girlfriend, he accidentally drew blood. And suddenly it all made sense.

With a happy sigh, he sunk his teeth in the neck of the struggling girl.

And found fulfillment.

The Ring

Heather’s eyes grew round as she stared at the sparkling diamond in the ring Dexter had just given her.

All her friends had laughed at her for going out with him. He was older than her father and had even less hair, but she always knew it would pay off in the end.

And now she had the ring.

“That’s bad,” she said, trying to sound cool and sophisticated.

“It is?” Dexter grabbed the ring from her, peered at it, then tossed it away. “That no-good, lying salesman! He promised me no one could tell it from the real thing.”

Death Row

Tom milled around the prison yard with the other inmates, waiting for the sound of death. There would be no stay of execution for their condemned mate, who would die in a most barbaric way.

“They don’t care that he’s innocent,” Tom said. “As are we all. The system is guilty, but no one wants to buck tradition.”

The thud of the axe made him flinch. He bowed his head out of respect for the dead.

In the silence, he heard the executioner’s voice drifting through the chicken wire fence. “It’s a big turkey. We’ll have a grand Thanksgiving feast.”