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.