Sara's Horrible Night of Ruptured Innocence and Ducklings

The twisted soul known as Vaspith Keel sat cross-legged on the floor of a barn, surrounded by scores of dead ducklings. He adjusted the heat lamp, bringing it closer to his lap and the stack of eggs he held cradled there.

"Don't be afraid." Vaspith cooed. "It's time to hatch into a beautiful world."

Vaspith cocked his head, listening intently to peeps. His eyes crept guiltily to the nearby lumps that once were their downy siblings.
"No, no. It's okay." He whispered. "I don't do that sort of thing anymore."

Behind him, the barn's giant doors opened and moonlight streamed through the maw. In snuck two stealthy figures, their shadows stretching up the slatted wall. Vaspith waited until the shadows crouched to leap--then he slammed shotguns backwards on top of his shoulders and emptied all four barrels. The shadows erupted in a chunky spray, wilted and then were gone.

A cry rang out above the rumbling echo. Vaspith turned and called out into the gloom.
"Those nasty shadows meant us harm you know!"

The only response was the muffled clank of a pitchfork being lifted from its wall mount. Vaspith eyed his empty box of shells.

"I'm not reloading!" He noted. "I'm not reloading because I love you."

Footsteps crunched on straw. Vaspith shinned the lamp down the narrow row of stables that ran a hundred feet to the side of the barn. The light only reached halfway, and for twenty seconds he sat still, listening to the approaching strides.

"Did you hear me?" Vaspith demanded. "I said I love you girl."

Sara became visible, first as slender patch of darkness that wasn't quite as dark as the rest, and then as a fuzzy, nightgowned form with dangerous eyes and a pitchfork.

"You made an orphan of me tonight." She snarled, continuing to stride toward Vaspith. "And those 'nasty shadows' were my brothers, come to save me from the ducklings' fate."

She didn't look fourteen--certainly not in the half-light of an incubation lamp--and with murder in her eyes and the way she held that pitchfork, it's unlikely she'd ever look it again.

"I'd like the chance," Vaspith whispered, stroking the eggs. "To prove I can be around ducklings without twisting their necks 'till they snap. And then you and I can be married and have so many children that the ducks on our farm will think that it's a race."

"Oh yeah?" Sara asked. She'd aged a decade in minutes. Less than an hour ago she'd been a child--innocent going on fifteen. Then Vaspith showed up and massacred her parents, and as she stood there screaming, he'd dropped to his knees in their spreading blood and asked for her hand in marriage. When she fainted, he'd run to the barn, where he giggled and started strangling ducklings.

"Yeah." Vaspith replied. He pointed at the downy lumps at his feet. "And I want you to know I don't do that sort of thing anymore." He gazed at the eggs between his legs. "I assure you, these ducklings won't be harmed when they hatch."

"Yes they will." Sara replied and rammed the prongs of her pitchfork through his chest. "They'll bare the eternal scar of having sat for a time in your lap."

Vaspith Keel tried to scream but his soggy lungs betrayed him. All he could muster was a phlegmy red foam that bubbled then oozed down his chin.

Sara stood over him and raised her pitchfork.
"Some would claim you're an opportunity." She spat. "A chance to decipher the madness of man."

"You know, that is so true." Vaspith wheezed, raising a thoughtful finger. "You really should hear about how--"

Sara plunged her pitchfork into his throat.
"There's nothing to learn from a mind such as yours and I gladly, gladly waste you."



(The eggs hatched in a puddle of blood and Sara worried that it'd derange them. But she raised them as ducks and showed them nothing but love, and if they'd imprinted evil it didn’t change them.)