Multi award-winning Canadian indie author of 11 novels of all genres who graduated from Concordia University majoring in Creative Writing. I’m an avid reader, horror movie lover, and a mom of two crazy kiddos.
To read more of Alyssa’s work click HERE.
KILL THEM GOODBYE
by
Alyssa Milani
Every summer, the tourists come.
Every summer, they leave their filth behind.
Their stench takes weeks to leave. It festers. Marinates. Takes over everything.
They consume, litter their garbage, scream profanities and listen to music that shakes our trees.
They fuck out in the open for all eyes to see.
But enough is enough.
This is the last summer they come and ruin our town. This is the summer we fight back.
***
My heart’s beating out of my chest, sweat dripping from my temples, and blood leaking from my fingertips. This has been the summer vacation from hell.
They came to take back what’s theirs.
They came to remove us from their land.
Not a single one of us saw it coming.
Screams wrap around me. Ear rendering screams that pierce and drill holes through me. But I push through, trying my hardest to get out of this fucking town. One more mile.
If I step foot outside of the town’s border, they’ll stop. They have to.
I pump my legs, muscles sore and cramping. Blood splatters and splashes with each pounding foot. Every person who chose to vacation here has been slaughtered. Torn limb from limb.
And then there’s me. Covered in blood and still alive. Untouched by the townsfolk.
The sole survivor.
Half a mile left.
My legs are wobbly, heartbeat pounding in my ears. Dread washes over me, consumed by my paranoia knowing that these people are close. Hiding in the shadows of the bushes surrounding me. They’re watching. Waiting with their pitchforks.
I don’t know what came over them. Why now? Why us? Why are we the ones who have to pay?
I saw my sister slaughtered. Head sawed off.
My father and mother were stabbed with a kitchen knife.
Brother and his boyfriend were tossed in a wood chipper, showering me in their crimson.
And all that’s left is me.
I’m frozen in the silence of my beating heart when the sign is legible up ahead, You’re now leaving Mystic Falls. That sense of relief booms in my belly, knowing I might actually make it out of this. I didn’t even want to come to the lake. But my parents forced me to.
We need more family time, Mom said. It’s the last summer before your brother heads off to college.
Now look at him, Mom. He’s a fucking smoothie and for what? Family time? Is this the family time you wanted? All of you were torn apart and tossed in the bloody lake!
My insides drop with disappointment as fear jolts through me. At least twenty-five feet away, I see him. The man depicted on the sign is dragging the axe behind him as he comes out of a bush and onto the road. Directly in my path.
I skid to a stop and whimper, tumbling with anxiety. “Fuck you!”
He laughs, manic and frightening. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I shriek through gritted teeth as twigs and footfalls surround me. “Leave me alone!”
“The last one left,” a voice hisses to my right.
“Looks delicious,” another chimes in.
The man in front of me giggles. “Shall we feast, boys?”
They charge for me, weapons swinging, laughter spewing. But this will not be my end. This town will not be the hellhole I die in.
With whatever energy I have left, I tuck and roll, knocking into one of their legs. They yell, readjusting their swing, and turn on a dime toward me. “Where do you think you’re going, little girly?”
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
The man by the border lifts his axe, ready to swing it at me when I body-check him. Taking him to the ground with a thundering oof.
Five fucking feet.
I scurry to my feet and push forward, my throat clenched as a scream pours through. “I’m not dying here. I will not fucking die here!”
He has me by the ankle, sending me barreling downward and hitting my face on the ground. My nose breaks instantly on impact. My mind soars with panic as I feel him grip my ankle with a tightened force.
I was five feet away. Five fucking feet.
I scream, my nails breaking on the asphalt as they drag me away. Fifteen feet. Twenty feet.
At twenty-five feet, I roll onto my back, my voice frozen in my throat, and watch as six townsfolk lift their knives, pickaxes, axes, and hammers, bringing them down on me until my insides become one with the ground this bloody town belongs to.