CARE AND BLEEDING

In this electric horror novella from the acclaimed author of The Insatiable Volt Sisters, an exhausted mother thinks her newborn might be a monster.

Thea's third pregnancy was her easiest. She wasn't consumed with anxiety about the baby. She wasn't convinced it was going to be born green, or have a third eye, or have tentacles sprouting from its torso. Thea was fine. The baby would be fine. But then the nurses handed Lucia to her, and Thea knew. Her baby girl was a monster. Not only was Lucia born with a full set of teeth and a devilish glint in her eye, but she's always hungry. Indiscriminately so. Thea quickly learns it's dangerous to leave Lucia alone with the chickens... or her baby brother. Thea doesn't know whether to be terrified or proud of her rapacious baby girl. But Lucia's rapid growth starts to bring dark memories to the surface. Flashes from Thea's childhood that won't release their hooks from her heart. Lucia wants to eat. Thea might just let her. Rachel Eve Moulton earned her B.A. from Antioch College and her M.F.A. from Emerson College. Her work has appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, Bryant Literary Review, Narrative Magazine, Southwest Review, New Ohio Review, Button Eye Review, and The Bangalore Review among other publications. Her debut novel - Tinfoil Butterfly - was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and nominated for both a Shirley Jackson Award and a Bram Stoker. Her second novel - The Insatiable Volt Sisters - was named as one of the top ten horror novels of 2023 by the NYT Book Review. She's spent most of her life as an educator, writer, and editor. She lives with her husband and two daughters in the mountains east of Albuquerque.