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. Rampage Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

RAMPAGE

Francine Stein stumbled backward from the door into the foyer, her elbow bumping a crystal vase her father had given her the day she graduated medical school. She peeled her eyes from her mother’s sobbing visage only a moment to be sure the priceless memento did not fall.

“He’s left me! Traded me in for a younger model!” Kim Stein said. Her eyeliner and mascara ran blue streaks upon her porcelain cheeks. Her lipstick was smeared. Her nose was red from rubbing. Her hair was tied into a lazy ponytail—something Kim hadn’t worn out of the house since she was a teenager. “That sonofabitch left me!”

Francine sighed. “I know. You texted me.”

“I did?” Kim said, then shuffled into the home, making straight for the kitchen.

The home, though expensive and mindfully decorated, hardly seemed a home at all. Likely because Francine spent most of her time at the hospital—not that she’d have it any other way.

Kim made it to the fridge and swung open the freezer door, locating a frosty bottle of Grey Goose vodka. The cork came away with a slight pop, the bottle smoking with vaporizing moisture. The bottle then went to Kim’s lips and she let the icy fluid slip sluggishly into her mouth, then throat, warming her insides despite the temperature of the vodka.

“Did you drive here?” Francine said, only mildly concerned about her mother, more concerned by the number of surgeries she’d had to perform on drunks and their victims.

“No. I got a taxi.” Kim took another, albeit smaller, swig from the bottle. “Your father’s in Israel, says he’s met his soulmate. He’s sixty-nine, a retired urologist, has two grandkids, and somehow his godamned soulmate is an eighteen-year-old Instagram model!”

Francine groaned. No wonder he hadn’t told her the news; she’d have bitten his head off, then laughed her own head off at his expense.

“I should’ve seen it coming. First there was Marlene Brenner, then Lana Harrelson, then Tessa King.”

“What about them?”  Francine said.

“All replaced! But for them, it’s fine. They didn’t love blindly like I had. They didn’t sign prenups. They squirreled away for the inevitable. Meanwhile, I thought that sonofabitch loved me. I bought us side-by-side plots at Golden Hills!” Kim’s knees buckled and she fell back against the fridge before sliding to the floor. “This wasn’t supposed to happen to me!”

Francine hurried to her mother’s side, kneeling. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I love him so damned much I feel like I’ll burst. I’ve never stood in his way. I knew he had flings with younger women, but he always came home.”

Francine stiffened. This was news she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear about her father, the man who’d gotten her into medicine. The man who’d paid her way along. The man who’d—her work phone rattled on the counter. She was on call.

With the abrupt professionalism engrained in her on the way up through the ranks of the system, Francine popped from her mother’s side to answer the cell. Kim began howling and whining.

“I’ll be there in five minutes.” Francine ran to the door that led to the garage. “Sorry, Mom,” she called over a shoulder before disappearing from the home.

—

Sweaty and disheveled, Francine fell into a padded chair within the third-floor breakroom. She and three other doctors, alongside six nurses, worked on the girls, managing to save only two of the nine who’d been brought in after the accident—five others were still being bagged, piece by piece, at the scene.

“Hear anything about what it was?” one of the nurses asked, he was sleepy-eyed, pale, and holding a mug of ancient coffee from a long-cooled pot.

“No.” Francine huffed out her lips. “I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.”

The driver of a short school bus carting the senior girls’ volleyball team from Midland High School had somehow missed the lights of a military train hauling hazardous materials—granted, the engine and the cars were black—and plowed the bus into its side. Top-secret hazardous materials. The driver died instantly, along with three girls and their coach.

“Chemical warfare’s illegal, isn’t it?” the nurse asked.

“I’m guessing that’s rhetorical,” Francine said, reaching a hand into a box of stale donuts left out on the table. She took a chunk from a honey-glazed and popped it into her mouth.

“Swear to god, Frankie, I don’t even know anymore,” the nurse said before downing the coffee, then grimacing. “Canada just doesn’t look like it should these days.”

Another doctor stepped into the room. “I heard it was psy-ops gas, like for training sleepers. I also heard the train was coming from a place that technically doesn’t have a military post.” He’d been at the gym when he was called in and was wearing Nike running shorts and a tank top that read WIN ROCKY WIN. “Whatever it is, it’s horribly close to perfect at wiping out a person but leaving behind a living shell.”

“Those poor families,” Francine said, snatching up another chunk of donut.

The two girls who’d been in the backseats were thrown from the wreckage. They’d suffered dozens of broken bones, punctured organs, and tremendous blood loss, but were now stable. The girls from rows two through five, had almost identical traumas to the survivors, but thanks to whatever was in that train car, their brains were all but wiped clean and could perform only essential functions.

—

Without awaiting an invitation, Kim had moved into Francine’s home. For the first ten weeks, Francine gave her mother a pass on the encroachment and irritation. The woman had lived with a maid all her adult life and proved herself to be a slob without one. By the eleventh and twelfth weeks, she was all but ready to murder her mother. Thankfully, monitoring the girls from the crash had become something of an obsession. The military doctors no longer came around and the families had all accepted that their little girls were gone, and still, those bodies continued to live on. Despite that there was no turnaround possible, every bone had been reset and every organ sewn up. Pints of blood had been pumped into the vegetables. There was no choice, as, technically, those girls were alive, and it was a prevailing notion that all life was sacred, even perfunctory existences.

For lengthy stints, Francine found herself in the basement where the girls were being stored. Her subconscious was busy, but with what, she couldn’t really pin down until the evening she came home and discovered her living room full of fifty-something women, each professionally puffed and smoothed and pinned back. Six women doing all they could to stave off aging while failing miserably at it.

“Mom, you didn’t tell me you were having a party,” Francine said, forcing a grin onto her exhausted face.

Kim waved her off. “This isn’t a party, it’s a support group for women who have aged out of use to their husbands and have been discarded like trash.”

“Ah, well, sorry I can’t chat, but I’m beat and I have consultations first thing in the morning.” Francine hurried past the waxy-looking women watching her, causing her to briefly wonder how much money had been wasted on looking like they wanted to look young.

Only two hours later, Francine awoke and sat bolt upright. Surgical math had been tabulating in her unconscious and was now pounding at the doors to the hall of historical, world-changing breakthroughs.

—

One million from each woman—excluding her mother, who, until the divorce split the minor, non-liquid assets, had no money. That cash went into accounts that would go anonymously to the families, and to the three nurses Francine trusted enough to assist in the surgeries.

Up until now, swapping out brains was impossible, but thanks to Bluetooth technology and the unique opportunity of seemingly empty slates to work with, it could and would be done. Three cameras monitored the progress, Dr. Francine Stein narrating as she went. All proof of the procedure would remain secret, but someday, surely, the world would be ready to cast away their ancient gods and accept that making the most of life was the only heaven available to humanity.

As a small comfort, a single girl would remain down there, and would be used only if one of the transplants failed.

—

“How do you feel today?” Francine asked her mother. Three weeks had passed since the transplantations.

The woman stood before a mirror in one of the spare rooms of Francine’s home, stark naked. “How do I feel?” Kim said, her smile was as wide as it could go short of engulfing her ears. “I’m sixteen again. I’m so smooth! My god, you’re a genius. I’d fully accepted dying on the table, but this… Frankie, girl, you’ve saved my life.” She began squealing, pattering her feet in place, something like a dance montage from a 1980s’ flick.

Francine, grinning, nodded. “Only trouble now is releasing the findings without triggering major downfalls upon ourselves.”

Kim tilted her head, studying her daughter via reflection. “To hell with the whole world, we need to keep this between us.” She swung open the closet door. “Now, what am I going to wear tonight?”

“Tonight?” Francine said.

“Tonight, we’re going out. You, me, and the girls.”

Not on call, Francine only shrugged. Her mother’s excitement and energy were infectious. Now, the only issue would be getting into a club looking like they did.

—

The security guard couldn’t get the rope back fast enough when the six girls and Francine stepped up to the entrance of Club Sunset. Inside, sweaty bodies in designer duds swayed and grinded. Francine’s first thought was of viruses. She shook it off and followed the six girls to the bar. They ordered, mindful of the fact carbs were totally an option once again. Bright colors. Little umbrellas. Enough sugar to juice an entire kindergarten class. Francine ordered a vodka and cranberry. Men and women side-eyed the group, paying additional mind to Francine, as if she was a guardian, bringing children where they did not belong.

The looks passed quickly. One by one, the girls were paired off with middle-aged men wearing small fortunes in clothes. Francine forced herself to hit the dance floor after her third drink. Men and women rubbed against her; she rubbed back.

A dancehall remix of a recent Lil’ Wayne track thumped through the impressive sound system. Now and then, the DJ called out or threw a scratch. Francine, about to finish her fourth, decided there would be no fifth drink. She waved to her mother—who was having her neck kissed by a man in an expensive suit—as she headed toward the line to the women’s washroom. Her mother waved back, a diamond bracelet from her twentieth wedding anniversary glinted beneath the colorful strobe lights.

The thumping tunes paused and instantly, the soft guitar melody of the country’s official drinking song started. The breathy voice of John Mann began to sing, “You’ll have to excuse-se-se-se…” A thumping, techno baseline revamped the original track. “…I’m so si-si-si-sick from the duh-duh-duh-drink. I-I-I.” The beat cut and the club went silent. John Mann’s voice resumed: “You’ll have to excuse me…”

Francine looked to the line ahead and behind her. She’d been about three months old when the song came out. Almost certainly, none of the other women awaiting their chance to use the toilets had been born yet. The thought produced a chuckle.

“…sick from the drink, I need home for a-a-a-a-a-a-a,” the music pounded to life and the crowd screeched in glee, “a rest. Take me home! Take me home! Take me-ee-ee-ee-ee…”

It didn’t take much consideration to decide she preferred the original. She scanned the crowd, looking for her mother, see if her expression didn’t betray how she felt about the remix. Before she found Kim, however, her gaze stopped on Kim’s friend Lana Harrelson. She was leaning against a pillar, bent at the knees, quite obviously sick.

Francine forewent her need to piss and started toward the woman. The crowd was thick and jumping, really into the classic made new. Francine was bumped and tripped. It took almost a minute to reach Lana, and by the time she had, the change had begun.

The crowd nearest the woman had stopped dancing and were backed away several feet, as if a fight was about to break out on a public-school playground. Lana had her face pointed to the ceiling, her index fingers digging into the flesh beneath her eyes. Her mouth was open, and her teeth rained to the floor as huge new teeth pushed in.

The music ceased and the DJ called out, “Help, is there a doctor here? We’ve got chicks having fits.”

Someone screamed from another area in the club only seconds before Lana pulled two massive strips of flesh from her face to expose greasy brown fur. The skin on her hands fell away as well, revealing ropey black flesh with sharp fingertips. The color from her eyes drained, leaving behind inky bulbs. In a flash, the remainder of her flesh slipped away, taking with it the D&G dress she wore. That greasy pelt covered everywhere.

Screams, one after another, began to fill the hall. People stampeded away from Lana. Francine remained rooted in terrified curiosity. She did another scan for her mother. She didn’t find her but spotted five more furry humanoids with buckteeth and paddle tails.

“Beavers?”

The doors were quickly blocked by the rush of panic. The beavers, not an iota of teenaged girls left in their bodies, not an iota of middle-aged women left in their minds, broke toward the mass of partyers attempting an exit.

“Dear god,” Francine whispered upon seeing the first leg bitten off just above the knee. The beavers’ jaws worked with incredible alacrity, almost vibrating their way through body parts. People began punching, kicking, and hitting the creatures with anything within reach, endlessly pushing toward the door.

Francine swallowed, thinking she had to get home and delete the evidence of the procedure. But before all that, she had to piss. She spun in her heels and sprinted toward the now line-less washroom.

—

Face in her palms, Francine tried to imagine how what she’d witnessed was possible. It was no good. Images of the wounds the freakish things caused and the specific types of damage she’d seen popped into her mindscape, causing her to mentally work through what it might take to repair those injuries.

The door of the bathroom thumped open, and a strange squeaking noise filled the piss-stinking room. Francine lifted her feet and watched through the gap between the stall door and partition. She saw the beaver face before anything else…then she saw the diamond bracelet on the beaver’s wrist. The same bracelet her father gave her mother for their twentieth anniversary.

Perhaps it was the booze, perhaps it was the terror, perhaps it was the instant anguish, whatever the reason, Francine whispered, “Mommy?”

The beaver spun, weird little hands gripping the door and yanking hard enough to pop the lock, followed by the hinges. Francine leapt from the toilet seat to the top of a partition. Her mother, in beaver form, chased after her, sinking those fantastically awful teeth into the stone divider. It crumbled like the wall of a sandcastle. Francine broke out through the door of the stall and jumped up, climbing onto the sink and reaching for the small window some eight feet from the floor.

“Mom! Stop!” Francine shouted as she pushed the glass from the window. “It’s me, Francine!”

As she latched onto the window frame, she felt her mother’s teeth bite into her hip, crunching through bone like potato chips. She screamed, tipping her body out the window. Immediately, people were running toward her.

“Somebody get one of those ambulances back here!”

“She’s gonna fall!”

“What the hell is going on?”

“There’s werewolves!”

Francine dropped to the asphalt, completely legless and with a shattered spine, trying to say, not wolves, beavers.

—

Francine blinked awake.

She looked around. Her three favorite nurses and another surgeon stood over her. The surgeon was named Peter Boyle. He was the greenest at the hospital but showed immense promise.

Peter smiled. “I hope you don’t mind, your friends showed me the recording of the procedure.”

One of the nurses, also smiling, held up a mirror. Francine looked; looking back was the plainest of the volleyball players, the one girl they hadn’t used. Francine swallowed an invisible lump. She was alive, which was good. She had time to figure out the why and how that triggered the transformation, which was also good. But, at any moment, something might trigger the transformation, which was very, very not good at all.

“The club…it was them…my mother…her friends,” Francine said, her voice alien to her ears.

“What’s this?” Peter said, his smile slipping.

Before Francine had time to answer, a janitor backed into the room with a mop and bucket.

“Excuse me?” Peter said.

The janitor heard nothing. Large headphones covered his ears. Francine began to blink, her guts swirling.

One of the nurses grabbed the headphones from the janitor’s head. “Hey! We’re in here!”

The janitor waved his hands, “Sorry. Sorry. It’s always empty this time…” he trailed, eyes on Francine.

The others’ eyes followed the path mapped by his gaze. Francine, in her girl body, was crumpled in the fetal position. All were silent, the only sounds in the room were her moans and the tiny tunes coming from the janitor’s headphones: “…need home for a rest. Take me home!”

Francine’s new body jerked upright upon hearing the trigger phrase. She reached for her eyes and began to peel away the uncomfortable flesh.

XX