Monstrous Affections Read Online Free

couldn’t stop myself. I don’t even remember wanting
to stop. My parents had to pull me away, both of them.” Judith felt
like crying.
    “My father actually hit me. He said I made him sick. Then he
called me . . . a little whore.”
    Mrs. Sloan made a sympathetic noise. “It’s not far to the ruins,”
she said softly. “We’d better go, before they get back.”
    It felt like an hour had passed before they emerged from the forest
and looked down on the ruins that Judith had seen in the Polaroids.
In the setting sun, they seemed almost mythic — like Stonehenge, or
the Aztec temples Judith had toured once on a trip to Cancun. The
stones here had obviously once been the foundation of a farmhouse.
Judith could make out the outline of what would have been a
woodshed extending off the nearest side, and another tumble of
stonework in the distance was surely the remains of a barn — but
now they were something else entirely. Judith didn’t want to go any
closer. If she turned back now, she might make it home before dark.
    “Do you feel it?” Mrs. Sloan gripped the axe-handle with white
knuckles. Judith must have been holding the shovel almost as tightly.
Although it was quite warm outside, her teeth began to chatter.
    “If either of us had come alone, we wouldn’t be able to stand it,”
said Mrs. Sloan, her voice trembling. “We’d better keep moving.”
    Judith followed Herman’s stepmother down the rocky slope to
the ruins. Her breaths grew shorter the closer they got. She used the
shovel as a walking stick until they reached level ground, then held
it up in both hands, like a weapon.
    They stopped again at the edge of the foundation. The door to
the root cellar lay maybe thirty feet beyond. It was made of sturdy,
fresh-painted wood, in sharp contrast to the overgrown wreckage
around it, and it was embedded in the ground at an angle. Tall,
thick weeds sprouting galaxies of tiny white flowers grew in a dense
cluster on top of the mound. They waved rhythmically back and
forth, as though in a breeze.
    But it was wrong, thought Judith. There was no breeze, the air
was still. She looked back on their trail and confirmed it — the tree
branches weren’t even rustling.
    “I know,” said Mrs. Sloan, her voice flat. “I see it too. They’re
moving on their own.”
    Without another word, Mrs. Sloan stepped across the stone boundary. Judith followed, and together they approached the shifting mound.
    As they drew closer, Judith half-expected the weeds to attack, to
shoot forward and grapple their legs, or to lash across their eyes and
throats with prickly venom.
    In fact, the stalks didn’t even register the two women’s presence
as they stepped up to the mound. Still, Judith held the shovel ready
as Mrs. Sloan smashed the padlock on the root cellar door. She pried
it away with a painful-sounding rending.
    “Help me lift this,” said Mrs. Sloan.
    The door was heavy, and earth had clotted along its top, but with
only a little difficulty they managed to heave it open. A thick, milky
smell wafted up from the darkness.
    Mrs. Sloan switched on the flashlight and aimed it down. Judith
peered along its beam — it caught nothing but dust motes, and the
uncertain-looking steps of a wooden ladder.
    “Don’t worry, Judith,” breathed Mrs. Sloan, “I’ll go first.” Setting
the flashlight on the ground for a moment, she turned around and
set a foot on one of the upper rungs. She climbed down a few steps,
then picked up the flashlight and gave Judith a little smile.
    “You can pass down the axe and shovel when I get to the bottom,”
she said, and then her head was below the ground. Judith swallowed
with a dry click and shut her eyes.
    “All right,” Mrs. Sloan finally called, her voice improbably small.
“It’s too far down here for you to pass the tools to me by hand. I’ll
stand back — drop them both through the hole then come down
yourself.”
    Judith did as she was told. At the bottom of the darkness