Byzantium
Flash horror fiction about some rogue teeth.
Mary twirled in the mirror that leaned against the wall in her apartment.
“It’s so pretty! I look perfect!” The red wool peacoat was belted tight around her waist and brought out the flush of her cheeks. She was just two days away from her first trip to New York and wanted to look like a true New Yorker. She tried to put her hands in the coat’s pockets before remembering that the clerk at the store had said she’d need to pull out the thread that held them closed.
“They sew them shut to keep the fabric from stretching during shipping,” the clerk had explained. Unbelting the coat and shrugging out of it, she flipped on her desk lamp, and sat down. The thread for the first pocket came out easily, but the second she had to cut in a couple of places. With the coat back on, she stood in front of the mirror again and turned the collar up, plunging her hands into the pockets, hoping she looked as mysterious as she felt.
In the right pocket, her fingers brushed against something cold and hard, a few things actually. Closing her hand around them she brought the handful of objects into the light.
“Shit!” She dropped them on the desk, wiping her hand against her jeans. On the desk sat a milky constellation of seven human teeth.
“You found human teeth in the pocket of a coat you just bought?”
“Correct,” Mary told the officer on the phone.
“Where did you buy it.”
“Polly’s, on First Street.”
“You say the pockets were sewn shut?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, what’s the brand of coat?”
Mary grabbed it and read the tag, “Byzantium.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Well I can’t really afford designer,” Mary said in huff.
“Not what I meant, lady.”
“Sorry, this is just very weird. And I’m leaving for New York in two days so can you guys come pick up the teeth tonight? I don’t really want them in my apartment. They creep me out.”
“I’ll have to run that by my dispatcher and get back to you, we’re a little swamped tonight, one of those weird days. And it’s not technically an emergency.”
“Oh, I see. It’s just, they’re so…” Mary shivered, unable to complete her thought. She stared at the small pile of teeth and tried not to wonder who they belonged to.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m here, I’m sorry. This is just very disturbing. If the bus ran this late, I’d bring them to you myself just to get them out of here.”
“It looks like we’ll be by in the morning to pick them up. Just have them ready for the officer around eight AM.”
“Ok, eight, I’ll be ready. Thank you.”
“Of course, see you in the morning, ma’am.”
Mary hung up the phone and stood by the desk, it looked like the top front six teeth, to the canines, and one molar. Nightmare scenarios of a factory murder ran through her head. Bits of the body in different coats all over the country. Then again, if that were the case, teeth were positively innocuous. Just think of what she _could_ have found in her pocket. She looked at the coat again, _Made in Ohio_.
“Ohio? Not what I was expecting.”
At her laptop she searched the manufacturer and found that Byzantium had closed down a year prior, but there was no mention of a murder or accident. Not even a news article, just an announcement.
> Byzantium Outer Wear will close its doors permanently on Friday, June 23, 2023. Please, be advised.
Outerwear wasn’t even two words. No wonder they went out of business. She wondered why Polly’s was still selling their clothing so long after they’d closed. How long had the coat and the teeth even been in the store? None of this made sense. Hopefully the police would sort it out… while she was far away in New York. Having pizza and beer with her best friend. The one who’d ditched her for post-grad in the Big Apple. Maybe the cops would just send her an email with the unexciting conclusion that the teeth were fake, a stupid prank pulled by a worker upset that the factory was closing. Filched from some unfortunate granny’s dentures and planted to sew mayhem.
That could happen.
Mary looked at the teeth again. She didn’t want to, but her eyes kept wandering that direction. They were very white. Whoever lost them was on top of their dental game. Maybe she could find a list of former employees and search for pictures…
_No, Mary,_ she told herself. _You’re going to go to bed and let the police handle this._
About an hour and an Ambien later, Mary was asleep and dreaming of New York. The teeth were making their way to her bed. And then to her face. Mary didn’t feel it when they jumped up on her cheek and began to root themselves into her flesh, digging and wriggling in and forming a sort of mouth with three teeth on top, and four teeth on the bottom.
She did feel it when she woke up, though. Late. As the cops were pounding on her door to open up so they could collect the teeth. Mary ran to the bathroom. The mouth in her face smiled at her in the mirror.
“Hello, Mary. Guess who’s in charge now?”
Mary tried to raise her arm to claw the teeth from her face, but it wouldn’t obey. Instead she marched to the front door and let the cops in. They stood in the doorway in horror, blood still dripped off Mary’s chin as the rouge teeth grinned at the officers.
“Ma’am? Why?”
“I’ll do the talking,” the mouth said. “And you’ll bow to me. This is my town now.”
The officers dropped to their knees. And the mouth smiled.
The mouth of madness!😬