Sharp Enough
by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
Unseen in her hiding place, Ronnie watched the couple approach.
“Hey, Alanna.”
Alanna started as Ronnie stepped out of the shadows, then recovered after a moment. Troy, by contrast, looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Um,” he said.
“Go on,” Alanna said. “I’ll meet you at the beer tent.”
Troy, mortified, shot down the street. Alanna just looked annoyed.
“Were you stalking us?”
“Hardly,” Ronnie said.
“What then? Lurking innocently?”
There were a lot of things Ronnie wanted to say in that moment. Starting with: Did you and Troy think of my feelings even once that night at the lake? The night he and I were supposed to look at rings?
Instead, she said, “Not that you care, but I’m working up the courage.”
Alarm crossed Alanna’s face. “For what?”
“For that.” Ronnie pointed across the street.
“What is that?”
“It’s a ‘haunted outhouse,’” she said, making air quotes. “It’s part of the festival. Read the sign. Get it?”
Alanna rolled her eyes.
“Very funny.”
The sign above the dilapidated shed’s crescent moon opening said: “Do You Dare To Go?”
“Funny, maybe to you,” Ronnie said.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of that?”
“I’m scared of a lot of things.”
“C’mon,” Alanna said. “I’ve told you a million times that I’m sorry. It just happened.”
Right.
“I believe you,” Ronnie said.
“Then why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“You know. Weird.”
That stung. Ronnie well knew her family’s reputation in town. It was one of the things that Alanna used to turn Troy against her. That, and Alanna’s creamy skin, curves, and inviting lips.
Ronnie set the thought aside and whispered the start of her story.
“I can’t hear you,” Alanna said.
Ronnie cleared her throat. “I said, we’ve always come to the festival. It never changes, except there’s more food trucks now.”
“Okay.” Alanna already looked bored.
“Except one year, my mom got sick and my dad had to work, so my mom’s parents took us. My grandpa was starting to lose it. He could say… inappropriate things.”
“Mm hmm.” The look on Alanna’s face: Tell me something new.
“I was with him getting ice cream while Grandma took my brothers on the Tilt-A-Whirl. He showed me that.” Ronnie pointed at the outhouse. “He said, ‘Do you know what happens in there?’”
“I’m afraid to ask,” Alanna said.
“He looked at me and said, ‘If you’re in there, and you’re not careful, the Claw Monster appears, skins you while you’re still alive, then wears you like clothes.’”
“Jesus Christ,” Alanna said. “How old were you?”
“Six or seven. I had nightmares for a week. My parents were furious. My grandpa was never allowed to be alone with me again.”
“What’d your grandma say?” Alanna finally looked interested.
“She denied he’d say something like that. Then Grandpa confessed like it was no big deal—like he’d been telling me the time of day. When I was older, I found out my grandmother basically never spoke to him again. Which didn’t matter much because he fell down the stairs and died a week later.”
“That’s sick. Truly.” Alanna looked uneasily at the outhouse. “You were really thinking of going in there?”
“I was. Not now.”
“What if I went with you?”
“Oh. ‘Best friends’ again?” Ronnie said.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Whatever. I’m not doing it.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Ronnie. I really am.”
Ronnie stared at her former friend. “Which thing are you sorry about?”
For the first time in a while, Alanna looked remorseful. “You know what, then? I’m going to try it. I’ve got a ticket left.”
“Don’t. That’s stupid.”
“What if I said it’s the least I could do?”
“I’d say you were crazy.”
“Maybe you’d be right.”
Before Ronnie could stop her, Alanna stepped across the street and handed a ticket to a bored carny.
“You really don’t have to,” Ronnie shouted.
“I know,” Alanna said, and she stepped inside.
Ronnie waited for a minute, arms by her side, until the shack rocked slightly, and what might have been a cry, or maybe just a child shrieking atop the Ferris wheel at the far end of the festival, faded away. Then she walked quickly to her car.
At fifteen minutes to midnight Ronnie arrived at her grandmother’s farmhouse, gravel crunching softly beneath her tires. The country sky was smeared with stars, interrupted here and there by streaks of light arcing toward the horizon.
She found her grandmother in the basement, working by lamplight. Ronnie shivered, slipping out of her clothes.
“Aren’t you a wee thing,” her grandmother said, carefully pulling from a grocery store bag the sickly yellow, loose skin sack that not two hours ago had draped the bones, muscles, and tendons of Alanna. The pelt—with its creamy skin, curves, and inviting lips—showed not a single tear other than the neck-to-pubic bone cut for easy wear. Holding out her arms, Ronnie once again admired the skill of her grandmother honed over decades of peeling apples, potatoes, and other things. Her Grandma Claudia.
“Ugh,” Ronnie said, making a face as she pulled on first the clammy left leg, then the right, then shrugged into the rest of Alanna. “I always hate this part.”
“Just a little foundation should do it,” her grandmother said, opening a frayed, floral-design makeup bag she’d had as long as Ronnie could remember.
“Perfect,” she said a minute later, dabbing here and there. “Very inviting. Where are you meeting Troy?”
“Down by the lake. Where else?”
“Good luck, then. He’ll never know the difference. Is your knife sharp?”
Ronnie lifted the dull, rusty blade she’d secured, pulled Alanna’s purse from the grocery bag, and slipped the knife inside.
“Sharp enough,” she said.
Want another gripping story by Andrew Welsh-Huggins? Read “The Basement” from Horrific Scribes, September 2025.