I would like to find this short story again. It originally printed in an anthology about ghouls. The title was something like, "Softly softly they might hear"? The story was about a man who encountered a beautiful single mom and her children only to discover that they were ghouls.
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1Welcome, you've provided some good details, but take a look at this guide to see if you can edit in any more details?– EdlothiadAug 16, 2017 at 19:12
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And then what happened?– Vanguard3000Aug 16, 2017 at 20:28
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The story might be "Amina", by Edward Lucas White. "Amina" concerns a man who encounters a desert ghoul and her family. I read the tale in the anthology "100 Creepy Little Creature Stories", edited by Stephan R. Dzienianewisc and Robert E. Weinberg.– Stanley WebbOct 14, 2022 at 15:09
1 Answer
This sounds like "Amina" a 1906 horror story by American author Edward Lucas White: Waldo, a young adventurer from Rhode Island, goes on a trek into the back country of Persia with a (presumably American) consul. While separated from his party, he encounters an unusual woman named Amina, who leads him to her home, where he meets her large brood of children. Amina and her young make some unnerving statements about their diets, but then Waldo either escapes or is rescued, and Amina is shot dead. He at first refuses to believe the consul's explanation that she is a monster, justifying the creature's teeth as bad human dentition, but then the consul tears off the top of the corpse's clothing, revealing that she has the multiple teats of a litter-bearing animal instead of breasts. The story begins after these event, when the consul assigns Waldo to a firing position and instructs him to mercilessly shoot anything that appears in his range, regardless of what it appears to be.