Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Helvi Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

HELVI

Noora Sedin thought about the scratchy woolen blanket the cop had draped around her shoulders the night she’d been discovered in an alley. The way the tangy scent of rot hung on the cool October air was unforgettable. She’d kept the blanket. Nobody had asked for it back, and when she was finally able to leave the hospital, the blanket had made its way to a bag of her things, the words PROPERTY OF N. SEDIN written on the side. Fourteen years later, what remained of the blanket sat in a slim closet where she kept the towels and dishrags and bedding she’d amassed since settling. Not that she had an abundance; nobody did anymore.

Why she was thinking of the blanket was simple, horrifying math.

She heard the rumbling growl of the engines even still as they peeled up her half-mile laneway. Light poured through the yellowed windows of the home from what felt like a dozen or so motorcycles. The Black Teeth.

“Mom?”

Noora spun from the window. It was as if she’d forgotten she had a daughter. It was as if she had forgotten what had happened to the Websters, Mrs. Bendix, the Hannolds, the Kurris. It was as if she’d forgotten Morgan Crosby’s sliced belly, entrails oozing down onto the street beneath the town’s single, defunct stoplight.

“Quick, into the hole and not a peep.”

“Black Teeth?” Helvi stage-whispered, the tone limned with terror. “You won’t make me do it, right?”

“Quiet now, not a sound.”

Noora knelt in the bathroom, lifting away a panel of accent wood from the side of the bathtub. Dusty and bumpy with crud, decades old spray foam that had gone orange rolled out a red carpet of discomfort.

A fist slammed against the door and a voice called out, “We know you’re in there, and we know who’s in there!”

Before she could settle fully onto her back to shimmy beneath the bathtub, she stopped. She’d left candles lit, so they knew someone was home, and if they knew two females lived here—it would not matter to them that Helvi was only thirteen—they’d be looking long and hard. Helvi’s only chance was for Noora to present a believable lie.

“Not a sound,” Noora said as she lifted the decorative panel back into place, then forced the old nails home with the meat of her right thumb.

“Open up!”

The door was being pounded hard enough that it rattled the potentially useful jars she’d collected over the years. In her old life, she kept boxes—it had been laughably difficult to throw away a good box. Now, she kept jars, trading them for anything a body might bring by the old home.

Noora spun the deadbolt. The door burst inward, and she stumbled back, thumping heavily against the old washing machine that had been in the house when she’d found it. She looked up at a biggish man in a black vest. He had a bright orange beard that kept his age a mystery and a puckered scar above his eyebrow that suggested experience with violence. Behind him stood three more men, the yellowy evening smog deconstructing around them to reveal more vests, more beards, more malevolence.  Four, only four. Perhaps they’d survive after all.

The first man through grabbed Noora by the arm and said, “It’s time to collect.”

The men collected all through the county, and then some. After communications fell, the idea of authority, of society, of a decent life withered like the corpses of so many politicians who’d been strung up and disembowelled—not unlike Morgan Crosby.

“Where’s your daughter?” said the second man through. The crow’s feet around his eyes promised many years, but the lilt of his words decried little wisdom.

“Dead,” Noora said, no longer susceptible to the anxiety even uttering those words used to cause her.

The third man in—dark, black beard, bald, tall, muscular, soft in the middle—was looking at Noora’s ass when he huffed in disbelief; in his grip was a large steel suitcase. The fourth man to step inside was slim, his beard greying, his gaze more thoughtful, he said nothing and made no gestures, simply stepped by Noora and the man gripping her bicep and moved deeper into the home.

“Find the daughter,” the leader said before flinging Noora across the kitchen where she stumbled against a dining chair, which sent her into a heap. “And you,” he nodded at Noora, “you strip.”

“It’s only me.” Noora sat up and pulled off the ancient sweater she’d found in one of the home’s many closets. VIU, it read, in bold across the chest, though much of the rubber had flaked away; the scarlet dye of the cotton had gone grey-pink. “Let’s get this over with.”

The three men still in the room wore the eyes of hungry wolves staring down an injured elk. Noora tossed the sweater and unbuttoned her blue jeans. They’d killed so, so many already; Noora had no plans of resisting, of punching the time clock on her life prematurely.

The trio stepped toward her, the leather of their pants wheezing, the rubber of their boots creaking, the scent of their intentions like citronella on the atmosphere: cloying, abrasive, destructive. Beyond the walls of the home, Noora heard the gentle rumble of heavy machinery growling down the road and sent out a mental cry: Help us!

The men gathered around where she lay in mismatched bra and panties. The case had been opened and two of the men began unspooling clear lines of tube. At the ends of the tubes were thick needles, the tips crusty with flecks of foreign blood. Out came the fresh, clean bags—the same sort of bags they’d used to collect blood before everything changed.

Noora made fists, fighting off the urge to thrash or scream when the roll of duct tape came out. The edges were busy with fur and bits of debris. The leader relented his grip some and directed her onto the dining table. She lay flat, knowing this would be bearable if they never found Helvi. The duct tape fastened her arms above her head, wrists bent to secure them to the lip of the table. Her legs were spread; one of the men had split the leaves of the table and wound the firm tape around her knees. Her ankles came last.

Noora attempted subtle movement and found none beyond her head. They’d let her see what was happening; to endure torture, both physically and mentally, was existence. The first needles punctured flesh in the crooks of her elbows. As the blood flowed, the men licked their lips.

“Think I’ll need a little taste for myself after—” the leader began but was silenced by an excited shout.

“Found her!”

This had come from down the hall.

Noora groaned. “Please, she’s only a child.” Her mind flashed to the hours preceding that cop wrapping her in rough wool: the strange beings, the horrid penetration, the impossible fall from a spacecraft to an Earth she thought she knew.

The man brought Helvi out. Dust and spiderwebs had caught in her hair. Clinging to her faded pullover were crumbs of ancient spray foam insulation. Two of the men grabbed Helvi and began yanking at her clothes, pulling hard enough to rewrite shapes and tear fabric.

“Mom?” Helvi said, chin quivering, the single word dancing on emotion.

The leader, grinning, put one hand on Noora’s forehead, pressing her flat. “Find what’s worth taking. These bitches won’t need it.”

The man who’d located Helvi nodded once, then hurried back down the hallway.

The leader spied Helvi with a horrid grin peeling the left corner of his mouth upward. She now stood in mismatched socks; pooling about her ankles were stained underwear and above was an off-white bra. Her right hand covered between her thighs, while her left forearm was draped over her chest.

“You’ve got it all wrong. We can’t even do that,” the leader said.

One of the men mumbled, “I can do it…now and then.”

“No. That is nothing. We’re going to bleed your mama into bags, then we’re going to eat you whole.”

“Maw-mee,” Helvi whined, sounding much younger than her thirteen years.

Noora jerked hard against the hand holding her head flat. “Do it, Helvi! You must!”

The leader spun, sneering now, and threw his meaty right fist—across his knuckles was the word BURN—sending Noora’s head whiplashing back against the tabletop.

“Don’t hurt my maw-mee!” Helvi said, the words riding tears and snot up her throat.

“Helvi, do it,” Noora said, these slow and thick.

The bags were each straining now, and the two men who’d hooked Noora up, were now readying more bags. The first bag came away from her right arm, blood spurting onto the floor and the man’s hands. Once he’d secured the fresh bag, he dropped to his knees and began licking the spillage from the linoleum, spots of blood freckling the tip of his nose like a kitten at a milk saucer. The other man was more graceful, and rather than licking from his hands or the floor, he sucked what hadn’t made it down the tube like fruit punch through a straw.

“I don’t wanna, Maw-mee,” Helvi said.

The men working Noora had time now to secure the child, and crept on her slowly, as if fear ripened the blood.

“You…must,” Noora said, her eyes closed, her pallor blue, her lips and eyelids a deep purple.

The leader stepped from Noora and grabbed Helvi. “Do you have a gun hiding somewhere? A knife? What’s she getting at, do what?” he said, pawing at her panties and bra, combing fingers through her hair. “What have you got?”

Helvi struggled, kicking and squirming and screaming, and finally biting the man hard enough that she fell heavily to the floor.

“You little bitch,” the leader said and reached again for a handful of hair.

She squeaked when he lifted her up, her thumb slipping between dry, cracked lips. She began to force air without releasing it, turning her face red, building the pressure in her veins.

“Hell’s she doing?”

“Having a meltdown.”

The leader held her higher and leaned close, his expression a ghoul’s mask of confusion. “What the…?”

Veins throbbed about Helvi’s forehead and neck, pulsing blackly beneath her pale, pale flesh. The leader let go and Helvi fell once more, though this did not slow building the pressure within her. Soon veins stood out on her arms and chest. Blood began dotting through pores. Bones snapped in damp crunches, sending her skin into a crooked dance of metamorphosis. Lumps formed and grew from her shoulders and back. Patches of blond fur, thick and coarse, inched from her flesh. Helvi flung away her thumb and writhed on the linoleum, looking less and less like a girl by the passing second.

“What the fuck is this?” the leader said.

The man who’d found Helvi popped back into the kitchen. His expression was of shock, but not of confusion. “No,” he said before sprinting to the door.

Helvi pushed into a crouch. She hadn’t grown taller, but she was thicker, her legs bent backward at the knees. Her head had swelled, thinning the hair atop her head and revealing a pink, pulsating roadmap of scabby scalp beneath. Long, pointed nails had stretched from her fingertips; her palms had grown thick purple pads. When she opened her mouth, she revealed a tongue covered in barbs, her eyeteeth tall and proud, turning in at the tips like fishhooks. Fur continued to sprout.

The leader slapped Noora, twice. “Wake up, bitch! Tell your daughter to cool it or—”

Helvi bent into a tight downward dog, then sprang, embracing the trio of men, claws sunken into flesh, her mouth pressed against the leader’s neck. They landed heavily, thumping, then sliding hard enough to crumble the old drywall.

“Get off!”

Helvi jerked her mouth away, a geyser of hot, hot blood springing from the leader’s shorn throat. He blinked, almost in time with the spurts as his breaths came out in brief puffs. One of the men got off two punches, enough that the one not punching might slip from her grasp. Helvi punched back, but with an open hand, two fingers slamming into eye sockets violently enough that the orbital bones shattered and scattered, shrapnel mincing his grey matter.

Outside, a motorcycle engine revved and a headlight lit, the high beam glow playing through the dusty glass of the home’s windows. Helvi shifted her attention only momentarily before returning them to the closer quarry.

The third man had slid across the floor, stopping before the door-less fridge. His left arm hung limply, huge punctures marring the fine black mat of leather, blood making the black slick and shiny. Terror clouded his face.

“What the fuck are you?” he screamed as he tried to rise on shaky legs.

Helvi said nothing. She bunched low for a heartbeat before launching herself like a panther, claws grating flesh from the man’s face and neck like fresh mozzarella. Helvi planted her mouth over the man’s mouth and bit. The man writhed, arms and legs thrashing haplessly, eyes rolling back. Helvi yanked away with her teeth clenched, taking with her the man’s mandible. His tongue jerked spasmodically in the black vacancy beneath his nose and upper lip.

Helvi rose as the man’s death rattle was setting into motion. Doors could be tricky, but thankfully, the fleeing man hadn’t thought of that.

Helvi exited upright, but once there was space enough, she dropped to her fours and started down the laneway.

The man might’ve been a lighthouse on a moonless night. He waited at the end of the lane, as if unsure about what he should do next. The engine on his gas-powered Harley rumbled, headlight shining brightly enough to silhouette the man in yellowy backwash.

Helvi paused, body bunched tightly to the ground. Her prey turned to look over his shoulder, eyes seemingly right on her, but not seeing her, at least not until she moved. Helvi pressed into her rear legs, then sprang, the man’s last words being, “I only help! I d—”

—

Half beast and half girl, Helvi fumbled with the bags, squeezing the blood back into her mother. Sobbing, a low moan playing up her throat, carrying the word, “Maw-mee, Maw-mee,” over and over like a mantra.

After a few minutes, Helvi had to sit, the fur rescinding, her bones deconstructing the savior they’d created, turning her back into her. Her flesh was coated in a sheen of foul-smelling pus that oozed from every follicle due to in-growing fur. She resumed plugging the blood back into her mother, rubbing the woman’s chest, feeling for a heartbeat as she worked.

Blood returned—for the most part—and blind to the possibility that Noora might never awaken, Helvi lay draped over her mother’s body, waiting for what comes next.

XX