Goodbye, Mr. Regret

Timothy stared at the message on his phone, his dark eyes fixed on the glowing

screen for a long while.

[Do you like it?]

He typed a reply.

[Yeah, just like Happy and Lucky.]

He pressed his lips together, thinking.

If Sheila liked them, there was no harm in giving her one too.

There were twenty-two left.

He bought them all, though he only intended to keep one.

The rest, he'd throw away.

It was just an excuse to set one aside for Sheila.

[If you like it, keep it.]

Capital City.

Jessica was too afraid to sleep. She huddled in the corner of the hotel room, knees pulled to her chest, shivering so hard her fingernails nearly broke the skin of her palms.

Every clap of thunder struck like a hammer against her heart.

power, plunging the room into total darkness. Only when lightning ripped across the sky did the world briefly flicker into view. The wind howled, rain hammered the windows

crashed

sky was heavy and gray, rain

mother had handed her a twenty, told her to run to the corner store

picking out candy, even choosing a piece of cake

swinging her bag of groceries, when she reached the foot of her apartment

a sickening

froze. When she finally looked, she saw it

wide and unseeing, blood spreading from the

in dark, snaking

from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

a woman

surrounded

ground. She

out, to scream

but no sound came

thunder and

Jessica alone in their apartment,

the image of her mother's broken

outside never stopped, battering

never understood why her

with every fiber in her body,

she had come home earlier, maybe her mother

gritted her teeth, hands shaking as she

glow of the screen was blinding

Her lips trembled.

of thunder nearly made her drop