The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Golden Offering
by Kathleen McCluskey

   Every year, when summer comes to Iceland and the days stretch endlessly beneath the pale, northern sky, we gather at Gullfoss. The tourists come for the same reason they always do. They want to see the golden falls, a picturesque double waterfall. They come to take their photographs and tell their friends that they witnessed something ancient and beautiful. They stand behind the ropes while we prepare the ceremony, watching us with the uneasy curiosity of people who do not understand what they have been invited to witness.

   We wear white beneath golden robes and each of us carry a candle. When the sun finally disappears, the candles are lit and we form a circle above the falls. The water thunders through the canyon below us, throwing mist into the air until our faces and robes are damp. The sound is so immense that it seems impossible for anything else to exist beside it. Yet, when the ceremony begins, every voice can still be heard.

   We sing the old words together, the same words our mothers taught us and their mothers taught them. It’s our harmony of protection. We sing to the Golden One beneath the water, the one who listens from the darkness and waits for the offering. The tourists take their photographs while we chant, smiling at each other like they are watching a harmless piece of local tradition. 

   When the final verse is sung, we extinguish our candles and wait.

   The first name rises softly from the gorge, a lost breath beneath the roar of the water. A tourist near the front looks around, thinking someone has spoken to him. Then the voice comes again, louder this time. He smiles when he realizes it’s his name. His eyes roll over white and he climbs over the barrier without hesitation. We begin singing again as he disappears into the mist below.

   Another name is called.

   Then another.

   Tourists begin looking around in confusion as people leave the crowd, drawn by voices only they seem able to hear. Some hear their mothers. Some hear their children. Some hear lovers that have been dead for years. Each one smiles before stepping off the ledge and nearby people seem to forget what they just witnessed.

   That is the gift from the Golden One.

   The tourists who remain do not scream. They do not run. Their faces become peaceful as the voices fade and the ceremony continues. When dawn finally approaches, we relight our candles and the tourists gather their belongings. They take pictures of the falls glowing under the morning sky, laughing as they show one another the images on their phones. 

   None of them remember the people who were beside them the night before.

   They remember the chanting, the mist, and the golden water pouring into the canyon. They remember how beautiful it was. They remember feeling strangely peaceful as they watched the water beneath the midnight sky.

   Some will return with photographs.

   Some will return next year.

   And some will hear their name when the Golden Offering begins again.

Fiction © Copyright Kathleen McCluskey
Image © Copyright Alex Grehy

More from Kathleen McCluskey:

The Long Fall: Book 1: The Inception of Horror

Lucifer always cunning and intelligent challenges father to a battle of wits. Being the angel of light he casts a judgemental eye upon mankind. He begins a war with his fellow archangels and God. Michael, along with his siblings defend their home and mankind from their deranged brother. Broad swords and hand to hand combat drench heaven in blood. The four apocalyptic steeds are released, each having their own destructive power. Betrayal and lust are at biblical levels. Understand the very creation of evil and the consequenses that transpire in the first of THE LONG FALL series.

Available on Amazon!

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Thing Beneath
by Kathleen McCluskey

   The formation always looked like a man to me.

   I had noticed it on my first day of hiking on the cliffs, a massive black outcropping rising from the earth beneath the grass. From a distance, it almost looked like the head and shoulders of some ancient warrior buried upright in the ground. The resemblance was so convincing that I took several photographs, laughing at myself for seeing a Viking where there was only weathered volcanic stone.

   Three days later, I was standing in the same field when the rock moved.

   At first, I thought it was the ground beneath me. The earth gave a slow, heavy shudder and loose stone rolled down the facade. Then I realized the movement was coming from the formation. The enormous head had shifted, just slightly and a crack had appeared across the black surface of its cheek.

   I stood there and watched as pieces of stone broke loose and crashed into the grass.

   Beneath them was flesh.

   I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. The thing buried beneath the earth was so large that its skin had hardened and darkened until it looked like the rock. Centuries of roots and dirt covered its face, thick strands for what I had mistaken as a beard hung from its jaw, tangled with moss and roots. As it continued to rise, the earth split around its shoulders.

   The sound was tremendous.

   The ground didn’t simply crack, it tore open. Great slabs of soil rolled away from the thing as its shoulders pushed higher, exposing more of a body that seemed to have no end. I watched an entire section of hillside collapse from its back and understood with growing horror that the formation I thought was a monument was only the smallest visible portion of something buried beneath the landscape.

   The Viking’s eyes opened.

   One enormous eye turned to me, cloudy and pale, its surface filmed from centuries of darkness. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even comprehend the size anymore. The head alone was larger than a house and the shoulders disappearing into the soil stretched farther than I could see.

   Then it groaned.

   The sound came up from deep within the ground and all around me the Earth answered. Cracks raced across the field. Trees bent as the soil heaved beneath them. Somewhere beyond the cliffs, rocks thundered into the sea.

   The giant was struggling to rise. But it felt like he wasn’t trying to escape, it was if he was trying to get away from something.

   His enormous hands appeared next, breaking through the earth on either side of him. The fingers were as thick as tree trunks, the nails black and broken. He dug them into the ground and pulled himself upward, tearing free of layers of soil that had held him for centuries.

   That’s when I saw the chains.

   They disappeared beneath the earth on both sides of his body, each link larger than a car. Most were rusted almost all the way through but some were fully intact, stretched tight as he pulled against whatever was buried beneath him.

   Something pulled him back. The Viking’s entire body lurched downward. His face twisted with pain and he let out a roar that shook the ground beneath my feet. The chains snapped one after another, each break sounding like thunder.

   For one terrible moment, the earth beneath him opened wide enough for me to see what was buried under him.

   There was another body down there.

   Something long and impossibly pale was curled beneath the Viking, its tendrils folded around him like roots around stone. Its skin was stretched over bones and its enormous mouth opened and closed.

   The Viking had not been buried to keep him in. He had been buried to keep that thing down.

   The last chain broke.

   The Viking surged upward, tearing apart half the hillside as he rose. His enormous hand slammed into the ground and the impact threw me onto my back.

   I looked at him, expecting him to climb free. Instead he turned toward me. His ancient face was a mixture of relief and terror.

   His mouth opened and beneath the sound of the collapsing hill, I heard a single word.

   “Run!”

   Behind him, something began pulling itself out of the hole.

Fiction © Copyright Kathleen McCluskey
Image © Copyright Alex Grehy

More from Kathleen McCluskey:

The Long Fall: Book 1: The Inception of Horror

Lucifer always cunning and intelligent challenges father to a battle of wits. Being the angel of light he casts a judgemental eye upon mankind. He begins a war with his fellow archangels and God. Michael, along with his siblings defend their home and mankind from their deranged brother. Broad swords and hand to hand combat drench heaven in blood. The four apocalyptic steeds are released, each having their own destructive power. Betrayal and lust are at biblical levels. Understand the very creation of evil and the consequenses that transpire in the first of THE LONG FALL series.

Available on Amazon!