I haven’t posted in way too long. Sorry about that. This is a short story I wrote a couple of years ago, and it was supposed to find its way into a friend’s magazine, but the magazine is on hold, so I decided to post it here. It’s not my best work, but it will make you think, I hope.

HOPE

Hope stared at her son. It was hard not to panic. She wanted to run around screaming, “They’re coming! They’re coming! Save yourselves.” She stood, legs twitching in denial of her instincts. Her son looked lovingly into her eyes. He trusted her and was happy, and she was grateful for that.

Her gaze nervously flicked between the only way out and her child. What time would they come? She looked around at the other mothers with their children and wondered how they felt, knowing what was coming? Every year they took the children that were not too young, but not old either. They took them away, never to be seen again. The mothers weren’t supposed to know what happened, but Hope had been wandering where she shouldn’t and had seen the children’s lifeless bodies being thrown into a truck.

How could they be so cruel? Didn’t they know how much suffering they caused? Hope knew they were emotionless, heartless; they had to be. What if she could save her son this time? They had taken her two other children, and she never forgot. Never. Her dreams were filled with their faces, their beautiful brown eyes radiating innocent love that had been cruelly disregarded with one slash of a knife.

She moved closer to her son and nuzzled his soft cheek, and he smiled. She lifted her head again and looked at all the children that would be dead by tomorrow. It was too many. Not again. No, she couldn’t let it happen again. She thought about how she could stop it and formulated a plan. Help was needed, and the smartest mother she knew was April. It was time to act.

April wasn’t sure it would work, and she didn’t like the violence Hope was suggesting, but if she wanted to save her son, she had no choice. They risked their own lives in this, but it was worth it. April remembered, just as well as Hope, how she had felt last time her child was murdered. The pain of losing a child cannot be forgotten or diminished; it smothered her life and suffocated her joy, permeating her waking hours and her sleep.

Hope and April waited, staying close to their boys. Between them, they had managed to organise at least fifty other mothers to help. Everyone was arranged around the huge enclosure: another way they had been mistreated—locked up, not allowed freedom to go where they chose. Hope wanted to survive, but the way her life was, she was not afraid to die if she couldn’t force change. No one deserved to live like this.

The silent mothers feigned calm, often looking at each other for support. They were in this together; no one else could save them. They had to do it themselves. Hope looked beyond her comrades, to the open sky, which taunted them, it’s offer of limitless possibilities closed to them, for now. She heard its message in the fresh breeze that puffed up the dirt around her legs, swirling the grainy soil in ghostly whirlpools, which danced among the waiting prisoners.

She watched one wisp of dust sweep towards the locked gate, and that’s when she saw them. They were here already. Her heartbeat raced. Her gaze met April’s. They exchanged small nods; the time was upon them. Hope waited for the gates to be unlocked, for the four humans and their dogs to enter. The humans wore those things they called ‘hats’, which shadowed their evil faces, but Hope could see the hardness and intent seeping from behind their eyes, like the sickly light which oozed through those Halloween pumpkins the humans put around the farm every year.

She knew it was coming, but jumped when April screamed. Hope screamed too, and soon the enclosure was filled with the bellowing of every mother. The humans had just moments to be surprised before the herd stampeded them.

Hope and April led the charge, hooves kicking and stomping, teeth that had never tasted meat bit into murdering flesh. Murderer became victim.

“Oh my god! Ron what’s happening? They’ve gone mad!”

Hope heard them scream, and she didn’t care, just like they didn’t care every time they came to steal their children, snatching them away only to end their precious lives.

Ron didn’t answer; he was on the ground, trampled limbs bent at unnatural angles like broken branches after a storm. Hope pushed her son out of the gate, and they ran as fast as his short legs allowed them. She risked a look behind, but the humans were down. Her friends and their children were cascading out of the enclosure, experiencing their first taste of freedom. Hope smiled at their triumph and pushed on—they had many farms to visit. Watch out world; we will be docile no more.

If you enjoyed this story, I have more suspenseful, much darker stories in Dark Spaces, which you can grab from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks and Smashwords.