On the morning our father was due to arrive home from his two-year space flight, all my little sister could do was whine about her dress being itchy, and all my mother could do was holler for us girls to “Get ready quicker!” and all I could do was gape when Mission Control opened the hatch where our father and his comrades should be, only for the cameras and the families to discover all that was left were intestines draped from the white sterile walls like tinsel and a message carved into the ceiling that read, “Thanks for the appetizers.”
Gwendolyn Kiste is a horror and fantasy writer based in Pennsylvania. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies including Strangely Funny II and Whispers from the Past: Fright and Fear as well as online at Sirens Call Publications, Danse Macabre, and Sanitarium Magazine among others. You can find her at www.gwendolynkiste.com and on Twitter (@GwendolynKiste).
