The Melting Season

short horror story

The summer swallowed the town whole.

Air clung to the skin like wet gauze, heavy and rank with the smell of dying things—sweet rot wafting from the bayou and the open dumpsters behind the faded strip mall. Even the cicadas sounded hoarse, their cries breaking into desperate gasps.

Mara Whitlock sat in her small shotgun house on the edge of Despair County, fanning herself with a yellowed church bulletin. Sweat bled from every pore, soaking her threadbare dress, pooling in the hollow of her throat.

When the air conditioner sputtered once—an old, rattling cough—and died with a final wheeze, the house grew unnervingly still.

No whir of fan blades.

No dull hum of struggling machinery.

Only the oppressive silence of heat pressing down like a hand.

She stood, sluggish, a wet imprint of her body left behind on the cracked leather couch. The floorboards seemed to squirm underfoot, the varnish bubbling in slow blisters. Even the walls looked slick, like the house itself was starting to sweat.

Outside, the sky drooped low and gray, a bellyful of sun that refused to set. No breeze. No clouds. Just the stink of boiling asphalt and something thicker beneath it—something coppery.

Mara stumbled toward the thermostat, jabbing it with trembling fingers. Nothing. She slammed the heel of her hand against it hard enough to snap the cheap plastic casing.

The heat deepened, a living thing now, crawling into her mouth, her ears, under her nails.

She wiped at her forehead and felt her skin shift—too soft, too loose, like wet paper mache. Her fingerprints left behind small, smudged indentations.

Her breath quickened.

She staggered to the bathroom, flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. She caught her reflection in the mirror anyway—barely. A ghostly outline, shimmering, sagging.

Her cheeks drooped lower with each shallow breath.

Her lips had puddled slightly, sinking into her chin.

Tendrils of her hair slid down her neck like overcooked noodles.

“No,” she rasped. Her tongue was thick and clumsy, sticking to the roof of her mouth. She pawed at her face, chunks of soft flesh coming away, smearing across the bathroom door as she staggered backward.

In the hall, the floor dipped under her bare feet—sticky, giving, as if the wood itself were melting too.

Or maybe it was just her.

Outside, the world shimmered in a heat-haze. The neighbors’ houses sagged like wax sculptures. The dog chained to the porch next door was no longer barking. It was a puddle of fur and teeth now, an ugly stain on the porch steps.

Mara tried to scream, but her jaw came halfway unhinged. It swung loosely as she collapsed onto the living room floor, her body folding in on itself. Her bones gave a soft, wet crackle as they buckled and slipped, melting like tallow from a candle's flame.

By nightfall, there was nothing left but a dark, glistening smear that steamed faintly in the lukewarm air. The house groaned, sighing as its walls sagged inward, weary of holding up under the endless, heavy weight of the Southern heat.

Somewhere beyond the bayou, another cicada started up, a long, warbling cry, and then went silent.

The melting season had only just begun.