“Heaven Sent”
by Jordan Castillo Price

The Midwest is full of huge gaps where things once thrived, until the Interstate landed…somewhere else. Wild Bill and I found this house between cornfields in the middle of Iowa. “Watch out for busted needles, Mikey,” Bill had warned me. “This was a squatter’s paradise. Once.”

Only one bedroom had miraculously survived the warp and rot that took the rest of the house. It was before dusk when I woke there, squeezed in a little kid’s bed. I pried myself out from between Bill and the wall and scratched my stubble. I needed a shave, which wasn’t gonna happen. No electricity, no water. I fingered sleep and old eyeliner from the corner of my eye, pulled a strand of hair out of my mouth, and blinked. Cowboy sheets. What more could we want?

Wild Bill was still fast asleep. He tells me that what you see in the movies, about vampires being dead while the sun is high, is all a load of crap. He says he’s just a very deep sleeper.

I pressed my ear to his chest and listened to the slow, deep thrum of his heart. No, not dead. Just sleeping for all he was worth. Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: Heaven Sent by Jordan Castillo Price →