Flash fiction
First published in Babs: the Black Road South #5 by Ahoy Comics | September 2026
“She’s not really my grandma,” I said, balancing a platter of meats and cheeses as I stepped out of the passenger seat. “But that’s what I’ve always called her.”
Chuck got out of the car, pocketed his keys – he always wanted to drive – and loitered behind me. “Was that weird for, you know, your actual grandmothers?”
“They were already dead. Remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
Chuck did not remember, but he tried. No one could say that Chuck didn’t try. In fact, I sometimes suspected that Chuck was trying hard to fall in love with me. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t object. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” he said, knocking at the door. It was a modest home, single story and drenched in sunlight, almost identical to everything else on the street.
Grandma answered so quickly she must’ve been waiting to pounce. “Sweetheart!” she cried, wrapping me in her long, bony arms. Chuck gallantly rescued the platter before I could introduce him.
“This is Chuck,” I mumbled into Grandma’s shoulder.
She pulled back to examine him, and raised her voice: “What do we think?”
Then a chorus of whoops: other old ladies, emerging from their homes to voice their approval. They were smaller than I expected, curled like questions, but they knew how to make a racket.
Chuck winced as Grandma ushered us inside, out of the sun.
Dinner was early and awkward. Grandma could always tell a tale, but Chuck was stiff and silent. I tried to fill in the gaps – how we’d met, what we liked to do together.
“You reach a certain age,” said Grandma, “and you become invisible. Me and the girls say we should rob banks.”
I laughed. “What mask would you wear? A fishnet stocking?”
“I see you,” said Chuck. He wasn’t laughing.
“Chuck can be very serious,” I said, smiling sideways at him. He seemed different now we were inside. He often found conversations a little unwieldy, but I wanted him to make an effort today. He knew how much Grandma meant to me – when I was young, she was all I had.
“Forgot something in the car.” Chuck scraped his chair back. “Be right back.”
Once he was gone, Grandma licked her fingers clean. Her nails were long. I made a mental note to ensure she was looking after herself. It’s hard, living alone at her age.
“We don’t have much time,” Grandma said.
“Give him a chance. He’s just nervous.”
“Sweetheart…” She took my hand. Her skin was dry, resting on my own. “I need you to listen carefully.”
Grandma always loved telling stories. My childhood memories were hazy like a concussion – all except climbing into her bed and listening with my whole heart. Her stories were wild, sometimes unhinged, and they tended to end with blood. They were lessons and I had to pay attention. I’d overheat, under the covers, each word jolting me an inch closer to adulthood.
“I’m not your grandmother,” Grandma said.
“I know.”
“Not like that. Listen – I love you. I loved you all so much. Right back to the very first.”
“Grandma?”
“I ate her grandmother, sweetheart. The first of you. I ate her grandmother up and wore her clothes. But that’s when I discovered – I liked it. I liked being Grandma. I liked having someone to love.”
The room seemed to shudder. I tried to blink myself back to hard surfaces and facts but Grandma’s voice continued, deep in her throat.
“I’m older than you think. I’ve been looking after young women for a long time. Keeping them safe. Teaching them lessons. That was my penance, but it was also my pleasure. ” She swung a finger down at the table; her nail pierced the wood. “Here’s my latest lesson – that man is trouble.”
“Chuck? No. I mean, he’s odd, but he’s doing his best…”
“Is he?” Grandma shook her hair, forcing her hair out of its bun. It hung down over her face, grey and thick. “You shouldn’t have to settle.”
I shrugged away the conversation’s hairpin turns. “Life is all settling,” I said. “There is no happy ever after.”
“Yes,” said Grandma. “I suppose I taught you that, too.”
Then Chuck walked back into the room, holding an axe.
This was the thing about Chuck: he was mostly void of opinions. I decided where we’d go, what we’d eat, even what he’d wear. “I’m easy,” he’d say.
His entire personality was a trap, I’d realize later. Not for me – for Grandma. Right then, though, I still felt like I’d walked in halfway through an avant garde horror movie. The entire room orbited around his axe.
“There you are,” Chuck said to Grandma, ignoring me.
“They’ve been hunting me for hundreds of years,” said Grandma.
“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked, as if interrogating a dream.
“The woodsmen.” Grandma spat out the word. “They hate women like me.”
“Women? You’re not a woman.”
“Then what am I?” Grandma lurched up from her chair. “What big ears I have. What big teeth. I made myself small, because of men like you.” She flicked me a lupine smile. “What kind of lesson was that for my granddaughter?”
Chuck stood his ground, knuckles white around the axe’s haft. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Of me?” The smile grew, her face splitting in halves, drool in its corners. “What about them?”
Grandma’s neighbors were in the room with us. Now I recognized some of the women; I even knew their names. Scylla and Charybdis, dripping with water and myth. The snake-hipped Lamia and the crow-like Morrigan. Baba Yaga with her tools: a broom, a mop, a pestle.
“Close your eyes, my dear,” said Grandma. She left hers wide open.