Slow Children, Kurt Newton
Previously published in "The Ultimate PerVERSEities", 2010
The signs are placed at intervals along the road
to warn drivers of the danger present. The road
is narrow, and late one night you take a wrong
when you should have taken a right. Round a
slow and endless curve, you see an animal lying
in the middle of the pavement—an animal with
cloven hooves and horns. You honk your own
horn, but the reflection of your headlights in the
animal's head-lights is as bright and red as a
summer sun before a storm. The animal rises up
on two legs, and from out of the thick woods
wander a herd of small children walking barefoot
and slow, their eyes like road flares, their feet
shaped like hooves.
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Kurt Newton's dark fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous
magazines including Penumbric, Oddball Magazine and The Wild Word.