Henrys Girls A Horror Short Story – Marinda Kotze (1)

“Hello, Brian.” “What a pleasure to meet you.” A petite young blonde woman in a blush pink chiffon dress grasps clumsily at my arm and introduces herself to me with a slight lisp: “Hi, my name’s Alice.” As quickly as she says it, she jerks her hand back, giggles and staggers a few feet away from me. Another one, a tall girl with bouncy auburn curls and an emerald-green sundress, pushes Alice aside and extends a rigid hand out to me: “Pleased to meet you, Brian. My name is Cassandra.”

Before I can grasp her hand, a voluptuous woman in a figure-hugging navy-blue polka dot dress taps me on my shoulder and says, “Hi, Brian, my name is Lucy.” “Why, hello, Alice, Cassandra, Lucy. Hello, everybody,” I say and wave my hand awkwardly around the room. Wow, where did Henry get these girls?

And they are so friendly— nothing like the girls in town. I scan the room and count six young women. Each one is slim and gorgeous. Except one. She sits on a recliner in the corner of the room. She’s bald, and a large piece of masking tape is wrapped around the top part of her head. She stares absentmindedly down at the floor while her lips and long black eyelashes twitch involuntarily as if she’s wrestling with her thoughts. The longer I look at her, the more I realize something.

I stumble backwards. Now, in the bright fluorescent light of the living room chandelier, I take a closer look at Nancy. She smiles and blinks at me. First, her right eyelid dips, then the left eyelid dips, then both eyelids spring back up again. I can almost swear that I heard soft clicking sounds when she blinked…

but I can’t be quite sure. Cassandra reaches out to me with stiff arms as if to embrace me. “What’s the matter, dear?” she asks. Her voice sounds concerned, but her face remains frozen in a sultry gaze. I dodge her advance, but in the process stumble into Lucy. Lucy’s body isn’t soft, as the curves of her lovely body suggest. Instead, I stumble into something very hard. Like something made of hard plastic or fiberglass. Like a mannequin doll. Like the mannequins that used to stand in the window of Parker’s Boutique?

I let out an involuntary shriek and take a few steps back. “Brian, will you please, pretty please, take us for a ride? We would so very much like to see the city lights,” Nancy says in a sweet voice. Sounds of agreement emanate from the others. “Where’s Henry?”

HENRY’S GIRLS. Copyright © 2026 by Marinda Kotze. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission in writing from the author except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Originally published in Afrikaans as Krisjan se Meisies by Litnet: https://www.litnet.co.za/krisjan-se- meisies/ (February 6th, 2025) Published by Marinda Kotze www.marindakotze.com E-book first edition: February 19th, 2026 Cover photo courtesy of Monstera Production on Pexels.com Cover design by Marinda Kotze OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS Special Note Henry’s Girls About the Author Other Short Fiction by Marinda Kotze OceanofPDF.com SPECIAL NOTE Henry’s Girls was first published in Afrikaans as Krisjan se Meisies by Litnet.

In 2025, Krisjan se Meisies was shortlisted in LitNet and PEN Afrikaans’s short story competition, Kyk Hoe Vêr Het Ons Gekom (Look How Far We’ve Come), in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Afrikaans. OceanofPDF.com M HENRY’S GIRLS y friend Henry lives twenty miles out of town in a two-story wooden house that he bought at an auction. He described it as a “fixer-upper,” but he was never one to shy away from handiwork.

I missed the dirt road exit from the highway twice, so by the time I parked my silver 2003 Hyundai Elantra in front of his house, the moon was already casting a pale glow over the yard. Three days ago, Henry sent me a text message which simply read: “It worked!”

I had to rack my brain to figure out what he meant. The last time we spoke was six months ago over a couple of beers at McGinty’s. I don’t remember much of that evening because I probably had too much to drink, but I vaguely remember him mentioning something about winning an auction and that he was excited about it. Something about furniture and shop fittings from Parker’s Boutique in town.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: f1a9dd30632b1a89
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,003,364 bytes (0.957 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 18
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 16.8 minutes
• Total Words: 3,361
• Total Characters: 19,221
• Average Words per Page: 186.72
• Average Characters per Page: 1067.83

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