THE TOPIC OF THIS CONTEST WAS:
There wouldn’t be a garden this year. There was no longer any water, and the only source of light now was from candles. The animals had all been set free to fend for themselves. She was sitting on the bench with her forehead on the rickety table when she heard footsteps on the porch…
(Stories need only touch on this topic in some way to qualify.)
The earth lay cracked like old pottery, its promise broken under months of stubborn sun. Once, Althea had coaxed callaloo, thyme, and peppers from that soil, offering gratitude as she watered them each dawn. She loved the greening of life that answered her.
Now there was no water. Not in the barrels, not in the standpipe down the road, not even in the air.
There wouldn’t be a garden this year.
Dusk crawled inside the wooden shack perched precariously on the hillside above Montego Bay. The only light came from three candles. Their glow barely reached the corners, temporarily smothering the watching and waiting gloom.
She had let the animals free days ago. The goats wandered into the bush, their ribs defining their emaciated bodies. The chickens scattered, their soft clucking no longer comforted. Bruno, her old companion for years, had left, ears drooping. Better to go look for life.
Yet, Althea sank onto the bench, resting her forehead on the rickety table that had belonged to her mother. The wood smelled faintly of rum, herbs, and the ghosts of laughter. Her lips moved in quiet prayer.
“Guide mi. Father God, cover mi. Nuh let darkness tek mi.”
The silence that followed soon filled with footsteps.
Slow. Dragging.
Her breath caught in her throat. Few came by anymore—not since people started whispering about duppies, grown restless with the drought, moving through the gullies at night.
Scrape.
Pause.
Scrape.
The candles flickered, bending low as though an ëunseen’ had leaned close to blow them out.
“Who bi deh?” she called.
No answer.
Only the old boards groaned, shifting under the weight that should not have been there.
Then the latch began to rattle.
She thought of the duppies that wandered where they shouldn’t, especially when things were out of balance. Her grandmother’s warning rose ominously in her mind: When duppies come, don’t answer them—don’t ever open the door.
Althea whispered. “Inna Jesus name, go weh.”
For a moment, everything was still.
Then came a voice.
Soft. Familiar.
“Althea… yuh nah go open for mi?”
Her heart dropped so hard it hurt.
“Marlene?”
Her sister had died a year ago. Fever had taken her fast. Althea had buried her with her own hands beneath the cotton tree. She remembered the weight of the dirt. The finality of it.
“Althea…please,” the voice begged. “Mi thirsty.”
The word thirsty stretched unnaturally, as though it meant something more than water.
Althea’s hand lifted toward the latch.
“Marlene?” she questioned again, unable to stop.
“Yes… Mi deh yeh long time.”
The voice was perfect. A memory molded into something beyond normal.
“No,” Althea pulled her hand back. “Yuh not Marlene.”
“Yuh sure?”
The latch lifted.
The door creaked open slowly, revealing a pulsing murkiness.
Something stepped out of it.
It wore Marlene’s shape. Same dress. Same headwrap. Same posture.
But the eyes were too deep, like holes sinking into nothing. The skin along the cheeks began to split revealing movement shifting like damp soil filled with worms.
“Mi tell yuh…mi thirsty.”
Althea stumbled, knocking over a candle. Wax spilled across the table like pale blood.
“Go weh!” she screamed.
The thing smiled.
The skin tore wider at the corners of its mouth, stretching far beyond what a human face should allow.
The air in the room tightened.
Althea gasped as her throat closed, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. Her eyes burned as though the moisture was being pulled straight out of them.
The smell of damp earth filled the room—alive, filled with rotting matter.
“Yuh pray,” it said softly. “But who yuh think answer?”
Cold fingers touched her cheek.
Althea flinched, but the thing was locking her in place.
“Stop…” she tried to say.
Her voice came out disturbed and dry.
Darkness spilled into the room, spreading across the floor like liquid shadows.
And inside it—
Now many faces pressing forward. Mouths open. Eyes empty.
All whispering.
“Let we in…”
“Make we drink…”
Althea felt something crawl beneath her skin.
Her stomach twisted as her veins seemed to pulse—not with blood, but with a fluid no longer human.
“We nuh come from outside,” it whispered.
Their voices dropped lower.
“We was always here.”
Pain exploded through her chest.
Her back arched violently as something inside her pushed upward, stretching her ribs, her throat—
Her mouth opened wide. Too wide.
And from deep inside her, something gulped.
Not of air.
Something wet.
Something ancient.
Outside, the wind sang.
The choked earth behind the house softened.
By morning, the house stood silent.
The door hung open.
The candles had melted.
Althea sat at the table, her head tilted slightly, her lips parted in a faint, seductive smile.
When a rare passerby finally called to her, she lifted her head slowly.
“Yuh have water?” she beckoned the stranger toward her.
As she spoke, a force pressed from all around her, kissing through her teeth.
It sucked for survival.
Behind the house, the garden embraced another joyous infusion of life.
