Two Stories with a Bite - New Dark Fantasy Fiction

Two new stories for you today – from two authors, both new to the Grievous Angel and, despite being on different continents, they share a theme of creatures with sharp teeth you don't want to meet on a dark night. I'll hand you over now to Blaize M. Kaye with Forty Full Moons and Nicole Tanquary with I Don't Bite.

Blaize M. Kaye is a writer from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His work has previously appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination and Nature, among others. Nicole Tanquary works as a university-level writing tutor who also writes fiction. Otherwise, she enjoys playing with her pet rats and eating ice cream.


Forty Full Moons
by Blaize M. Kaye

A full moon hangs low over the apricot grove behind our house. 

My brothers wait amongst the trees, deep voices in the early dark, while my father paces outside my bedroom.

Tonight will mark forty full moons since he called me to his study.

“You are on the cusp of manhood”, he began and then told me of our family’s secret: The change, the bloodlust, the fathomless guilt.

“It came for me on my thirteenth birthday”, he explained, “as it came for your brothers.”

“As it will come for you”, he said, grinning savagely.

Outside my window, my brothers’ conversation becomes an animal babble as their jaws and tongues lengthen. Joints pop and ligaments tear sickeningly.

I close my eyes and call out to the moon, waiting for the change, waiting for my blood to work hot through my veins. But it doesn’t come. It never comes.

My father’s claws click against the parquet floor. He waits a moment, sniffs the air, and knows that, again, I’ll not be hunting with them.

I clench my fists to steady my shaking hands and wonder if I’ll ever become the man my father wants me to be?

At dawn, they’ll return, naked, caked in gore, flecks of gristle between their teeth.

I flex my fingers but my hands still shake.

I never want to become the man he wants me to be.

My father’s howl marks the start of the hunt. And then they’re gone, out to the veld past the grove and on to the town beyond that.

The night is quiet, cool, and smells of the fruit that has fallen before the harvest.
 

I Don’t Bite
by Nicole Tanquary

Hey there hey hey there c’mere yeah c’mere pretty girl I like the way you walkin c’mere an talk to me hey hey HEY where you goin where you GOIN why you in such a hurry hey c’mon I don’t bite hey hey
Hey what
What you doin

I said what you doin, what you doin with yo face
Yo face is like …
  
Okay
I get it okay okay
Okay we cool hey hey we cool
I said we cool don’t look at me like that
Why you lookin at me like that
An what the Hell is wrong with yo mouth

Hey hey I’m walkin see I’m walkin I’m gone
I’m gone
I said I’m gone bitch why you followin me 
Why you followin me bitch stop followin me already I said I’m gone

I’m not foolin don’t you mess with me so just fuck off close yo mouth an stop smiling at me like that
    
Yeah yeah okay I shouldn’t have bothered you I’m sorry okay I’m sorry an I’m goin now I’m goin so stop fuckin-

HEY
HEY HEY Keep the HELL away from me
Those fuckin TEETH
The fuck you DOIN you CRAZY BI–