I'd like to present you to Dani Brown, the Queen of Filth, who kicks off our new blog with some flash fiction.
By Dani Brown
The teacher thought the scratching came from behind the whiteboard, like her nightmares the night before. Alone in the classroom, her former student stood in front of her with hooks where hands should have been. The same piercing blue stare she had in life surrounded by an aura of decay.
The art room developed a chill in the seat in front of the drying racks ever since the girl who sat there was discovered mutilated in the tin mines. No students wanted to sit there anymore and covered the seat in paper flowers and daisy chains picked on their way to school.
She asked the class to quiet down and noticed the chill spread from the seat in front of the drying rack. The sun didn’t shine from the windows on that part of the classroom anymore.
The girl discovered mutilated in the abandoned mines came to her in her sleep and pulled back the layers of her dreams with hooks where hands should have been. Murdered the day before she turned fourteen.
The students moved away as the daisy chains decayed. They’d rather sit two to a desk than be near the icy chill. That wasn’t their classmate anymore.
Hooks scratched, trapped in the walls. The teacher turned her back on the class and tried to investigate. She didn’t get much sleep last night. Please, I want to go home to my birth mother. The teacher snapped around.
“Who said that?”
The children were clearly frightened, cowering in their seats. Two to a desk, except that boy over there.
“Where’s your desk partner?”
“I don’t know miss, he said he heard singing and just disappeared.”
“Children don’t just disappear.”
A girl stood up and pointed to the drying rack.
“She did.”
The daisy chain fell off the desk and the paper flowers floated to the chair.
“She was murdered by her stepmother and thrown down the mine shaft.”
“They never found her hands.”
“Please be quiet.”
Hooks scratched behind the whiteboard and the teacher rubbed her temples. Please help me, I want to go home to my birth mother. She remembered the plea from her broken sleep. My father can’t help me anymore. He’s held within my stepmother’s spell. The girl didn’t have hands or a school uniform anymore. Dried blood ringed her neck. Her throat slit before her body landed in the tin mines.
Orange orbs floated from the drying rack. A girl with pigtails turned around and tried not to scream. The faces behind the orbs had melted away. Flesh bubbled in blisters where noses should have been.
Hooks scratched behind the whiteboard. Hooks scratched behind the drying rack. Don’t look the miners in the eye. A teenage girl laughed. It wasn’t a student. The whiteboard shuddered and screamed. Blood oozed down and smudged the answers to the art history exam.
The intercom buzzed into life.
“The miner’s will steal your classmates and take them to the tin mine unless you return home.”
Hooks cut through the whiteboard and the blood dripped into letters. Please let me return to my birth mother. My father doesn’t love me anymore. My stepmother promised him a new daughter, if he follows her to the Neon Dream.
Hooks crashed through the drying rack and ruined the paintings and prints. Another girl stood there with hooks where hands should have been. Maggots poured out of her mouth when she tried to speak.
“Do what my mother says.”
The girl at the opposite end of the classroom held her hooks above her piercing blue eyes. Maggots landed on her tunic when she opened her mouth.
“Please, you were meant to be my friend.”
The miners stared with eyes in a shade of demonic red and surrounded the girl with pigtails. Off she went, to the tin mines. They left her desk partner behind. The intercom came to life and the classroom could hear the girl with pigtails cry.
“You are fallen now. Trapped inside a cage. Your hands will power my neon dream.”
A final shrill buzz cut her screams.
The former classmate trembled. Her hooks scratched her thighs and released her flesh to the floor with maggots and scraps of fabric from her dirty tunic.
“Please help me.”
The miners came back with their lamps held high and hoods concealing their demonic eyes. The girl at the back of the room walked to the front and slapped her stepsister with a gleaming hook. Maggots fell where she stepped.
“Do you want my mother to kill all your former friends? They didn’t like you much anyways. Her tin miners are begging for action. Look at their orange orbs, do they seem a bit brighter?”
The paper flowers floated to the floor. The petals on the daisy chain curled in. The blood letters on the whiteboard started to drip.
“Your father left you to be with my mother. Can you blame him?”
The teacher tried to step in. A hook grazed her skin.
The former classmate started to cry and lost an eye in a river of tears. The miners held their lanterns high and their hoods fell back. A boy screamed at the melted faces. The lost eye hit the other girl with hooks instead of hands in the foot. She put a hook through it and held it up for the class to see.
“Come on, back to the Neon Dream. Maybe we’ll run into your father?”
The girl hissed at her stepsister’s former classmates and the miners closed in. The former student screamed. Her hooks held high, she tried to slash at the miners. They carried her away through the whiteboard. Her stepsister turned to the class and opened her mouth. Maggots fell out before she disappeared.
Sirens approached the school. The teacher told her students to tell the truth. They had the maggots as proof.
Love/lust gone in 56 seconds. Carried over the Wi-Fi never to be seen again. 56 seconds and a lifetime of regret. She walks out of the fog with a glass of gin and a slice of lime. Flies return to life. The other screams inside his head. DJ Donnie. Still a dick. Still a jerk.
So much can happen in 56 seconds, 4 seconds shy of a minute.
Available from amazon https://mybook.to/56SecondsReissue
Strip/Becoming is the story of how Marcy died. Trapped in a loop and stuck with him. The robotic shapeshifting demon from Mars.
Read more here https://danibrownqueenoffilth.weebly.com/stripbecomingselection.html
Available on amazon https://mybook.to/Strip_Becoming
Suitably labelled “The Queen of Filth”, extremist author Dani Brown’s style of dark and twisted writing and deeply disturbing stories has amassed a worrying sized cult following featuring horrifying tales such as “Ghetto Super Skank”, “56 Seconds”, “Name Dropping With Hayden” and the hugely popular “Ketamine Addicted Pandas”. Merging eroticism with horror, torture and other areas that most authors wouldn’t dare, each of Dani’s titles will crawl under your skin, burrow inside you, and make you question why you are coming back for more.
Find Dani online here https://linktr.ee/DaniBrownQueenofFilth
