bittersweet

The smaller the town, the sweeter the berry.

Folk Horror Short Story

The small town sat low enough that after a hard rain, the sea would sometimes slip over the streets like it owned the place. When storms rolled in, water lapped at porches and crept into basements. Some said it felt like living below sea level, but no one talked much about moving. They’d built a rusted sheet-metal wall to hold the worst of it back, all cobbled together from bake-sale money and town hall fundraisers. It wasn’t much, but it made people feel safe.

Wilf Bury made them feel even better.

He was the town’s sweetheart. A silver-haired, rosy-cheeked man with a laugh as sweet as pie. He picked wild, oddly perfect berries and gifted them to the town’s women. Especially the widows. He had a route of sorts. Every morning he’d start at one end of town and visit his "girls," as he once called them at the local grocery store.

“Oh, what have you got there now? You shouldn’t go through all that trouble, my son,” they’d say, blushing—every single time.

“I can’t help it,” he’d say. “I see a beautiful woman and think she needs some berries.”

He never told where he found them. “If I give away my secrets,” he’d wink, “there’ll be nar one left for me to pick.”

He’d give them buckets of berries, and they’d bake. Cakes, pies, muffins—warm offerings to thank the man who made them feel so special. He never stayed long, just enough for a laugh and a blush. Then off he’d go, onto the next porch, the next nearby town.

To each of them, he felt like the part of life they forgot they were missing.

That Sunday, Vera invited him in for dinner. She was making Jiggs—salt beef, turnip, carrot, cabbage, and potatoes boiled to perfection—and Wilf lit up at the mention of it. “Haven’t had a proper one since me mother passed,” he said, smiling like it was a gift too big to ask for.

He arrived with a jar of his darkest berry jam and a small bundle of wildflowers, freshly pulled and still dripping from the stems. Vera had a few family members over—grown kids, a grandkid or two, but Wilf walked in like he belonged. He gave everyone a nod and a wink, but it was Vera he saw. Really saw. He listened when she talked, asked her questions about the old recipe, and laughed at stories no one else heard anymore.

She didn’t even notice the conversation fading around her. The din of plates and voices dulled to background hum. She was tuned to him.

When the meal was finished, Wilf was on his feet, clearing plates before anyone could stop him. “You cooked, I’ll clean. Fair’s fair,” he said, lifting the roast pan like it weighed nothing. He rinsed, dried, packed away leftovers like he’d done it a hundred times in her kitchen. No fuss! When she tried to stand, he put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Stay put now, missus. You did enough.”

And she did. For the first time anyone could remember, Vera sat through the end of dinner. Let someone else do the tending.

Her daughter caught her eye from across the table with shock, maybe even a little amused, but Vera just gave a soft shrug. She couldn’t quite explain it, but there was something about Wilf that made her feel like it was okay to rest. Just the once.

But kindness like that?

It had a way of sticking to you—just like the cholesterol in salted beef sticks to the arteries of an aged heart.

One late-July afternoon, Vera went for a drive. The crisp air blowing off the Atlantic ocean held fond memories. Her late husband used to take her to a lookout beyond the abandoned military base. Now, it was just land—bare, beautiful, and quiet.

They used to come out here for the stillness, for the view, but also for what used to be. Before it was scrubbed clean, this stretch of coast had been a bustling outpost—an American Naval base, brimming with military families, tall buildings, satellite dishes, and the smell of popcorn from the base movie theater. There were apartment complexes, and even a bowling alley, with a neon sign that flickered at night. It had been a town within a town, self-contained and surreal. It was like slipping into a different world whenever they visited.

Then it vanished.

The military pulled out. The businesses followed. Local investors came in with talk of vision and opportunity, and what followed was demolition. Vera still remembered standing alongside dozens of others, arms folded, faces pinched against the salt wind, watching the last of the apartment towers implode in a plume of dust and memory. People clapped, though no one really smiled.

What a scene, she thought. All that infrastructure, all those lives, flattened because no one could agree on what came next.

She had worked in one of those buildings. Poured coffee for officers. Spent weekends bowling with her friends and family, laughing over the best plate of french fries in town. Maybe that’s why she still came back. The land looked empty now, but it held good ghosts—hers included.

She parked in their old spot and leaned against her car. Her eyes welled up with tears, and were quickly dried again as the cold breeze brushed her face. She didn’t like to show her tears. The view was still breathtaking, even if the buildings were gone. She was lost in thought when she heard rustling behind the roadside brush. She assumed it was a moose, and quickly did the math in her mind, hoping it wasn't mating season. Those beasts can get aggressive.

Then—a sneeze!

A head popped up. Wilf?

He didn’t see her. He was too focused, crouched deep in the wild, plucking tiny plums into an empty beef bucket. She didn’t want to disturb him.

She smiled. Of course it was him. He really did pick them himself, she thought. Smitten at the thought of a hard working man tending to her heart. And laughing that she now knows his secret spot.

The next morning, he knocked on her door. “Berries! You won’t believe the size of ‘em today, missus!” He only ever referred to her as 'missus'. She took it as a sign of endearment.

She handed him the local TV Hearld's weekly recipe—brown sugar blueberry muffins. “Now, can you believe that? I'm trying this one tomorrow,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye like love at first sight.

He beamed. “Can’t wait.”

Except he didn’t eat anything she made for him. He never did. He gave them to other women in nearby towns, always warm, always fresh. A thank-you, he’d say, for letting him use their bushes.

No one suspected a thing.

Until the local news station aired a story.

"Toxic Soil Found on Region Road. Military Waste Contaminates Surrounding Land. Avoid Consumption of Local Flora."

Vera dropped the muffin tray. Suddenly, she remembered the old military maps. The lake. The hush money. The land no one wanted to talk about.

Had Wilf known?

After the story aired, he never changed. Still smiling. Still gifting berries. He never uttered a word about it.

These days, when she saw him coming, it stirred something tangled—part comfort, part question. She chose to focus on the comfort. That was woven into her nature. Into her culture, too.

And what exactly was he feeding her? She didn’t dare to ask. In no time, she brushed it off, assuming he'd never do such a thing. Caught up in her joy of seeing him visit.

The illnesses started slow. Fatigue. A rash. Sudden forgetfulness. One woman fell while hanging her laundry on an outside clothesline and never remembered how. Another forgot how to get home from the old dirt road she’d driven for forty years.

No one spoke of it. Because no one knew they weren’t alone. Each thought it was just them. Something in the water. A bad night’s sleep. The grief catching up.

Unbeknownst to them, Wilf kept coming back to each one of them. Berries in hand. Smile bright. “They’re especially sweet this week,” he’d say. And they’d smile back. Thin, pale-lipped smiles. A now faint spark in their eyes.

None of them ever bothered asking where he picked them. And Vera had pretty well forgotten she saw him down there that day.

So still—she baked. Fed it to her family. Ate it herself.

Because by then, she probably needed his attention more than she feared his bad intentions.

No one knew why he came to town in the first place. But if you asked the right person, in the right moment, they’d tell you there was a woman once. A woman who ruined him. Left him with that pearly smile everyone loved carved into his face.

So he came to feed the ache to women who would never leave. Women who would thank him for their suffering. Women who would feel chosen by his attention, even as their health declined.

And eventually, they did just that. Every day he brought those berries, Vera and all the other widows thanked him.

Even when the illness spread around her. Even when the doctors couldn’t name the disease. Even when she and the others started to become gravely sick.

She still accepted his berries. And she kept baking.

Because when you've lived long enough, tending to all but rarely being tended on—You stop questioning the cost of affection. You convince yourself that kindness harbours no bad intentions.

And a charming man with a jolly laugh and a basket full of poison knows exactly how to slip past that kind of ache.