Several days had gone by since Horton last caught his reflection in the mirror, and what he saw this morning gave him pause. As he raised his head from the bathroom sink, he came face to face with his own sickly visage. His long, tangled black hair was twisted up in a series of rats-nests, framing his gaunt, pale face. His once sparkling blue eyes were now dull and sunken—scared-looking. He knew he was sick, but his illness wasn’t the cause of his trepidation. After all, he had recently figured out that a Blajini lived next door.

His mother, Rona, thought her son was simply overreacting. She insisted that the neighbors, Petru and Mircea cel Rau, along with their teenage son, Stefan, were completely normal people. She explained that they just seemed a bit odd, because they were foreign immigrants from Romania.

Rona Louderfink had quickly made friends with Mrs. cel Rau shortly after they moved in next-door several months back. She noticed their son was very small for his age and had red, patchy skin. He often wore a terry-cloth robe around the house, with the hood pulled over his head, and he almost never went outside.

The one time Mrs. Louderfink saw Stefan’s face, she recoiled in revulsion. The young boy’s face was wrinkled and covered with angry red boils. His eyes were a milky-white, due to the juvenile cataracts.  His teeth looked rotten and twisted, as did his fingernails. After apologizing all over herself for no less than thirty minutes, Rona embarrassedly exited the cel Rau home.

Dempsey Wilson is a 39 year-old single father of two living in Omak, Washington. To date, he is published 16 times.

Here are a few of his published works: "Through The Eyes of a Killer" published by Mind Wings Audio. "Shadow Kitties" published in One Real Story's annual anthology, March, 2009. "Small Science" published in the April 09 issue of NVF Magazine. "I, Alone" published in the June 09 issue of New Voices in Horror Magazine. "Revenge In General" First Prize Winner in WritingRoom's monthly contest and published in the anthology, Running Willow~Waiting Revenge. "Ryers Canyon" was published in the November 08 issue of Vicious Writers, an online magazine, and winner of the Editor's Choice Award. Mr. Wilson was also named Januaray's Writer of the Month in Vicious Writers' Jan. 08 issue.