The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Escape
by Alex Grehy
They built the fence high and sharp, to keep the monsters out. We lived complacent, confident that our little bubble of barbed wire would keep us safe forever.
We lived in peace.
Our lore taught us about the monsters beyond the fence – tales repeated down the generations until they became myths, unreal. Thus it was that a child doomed us. A compassionate child, who, one winter’s night, opened the gate, anxious the monsters were cold and hungry, wanting to share our warmth and food with them.
He did not know that we are their food.
Our men fought bravely, but all perished and now the monsters are here. We, the women, the old folk and the younglings, unintentionally corralled with them, hiding as best we can in the shadows. The lore did not tell us that the fences we built to keep them out would trap us in with them if they ever broke through.
But the mothers and grandmothers remember those dark, whispered conversations around our fires at midnight. The “what ifs” chewed endlessly, like tobacco, the bitter answers spat sizzling into the embers. The truth of what we must do if the monsters broke through. A message passed in shared glances and hooded gestures. A lore known but never spoken.
Until tonight,
I stand on my elder sister’s shoulders, grasping the wire tightly, pressing my body to the barbed fence, feeling its bite on my clothes, my skin, until I am firmly impaled. I hear my younger sister crying softly as she tries to place her feet gently on my grandmother’s waist as she pulls herself up. My mother’s voice, full of love, urges her on, though I know my sister’s ascent will force our mother’s wise and lovely face further onto the fence’s steel thorns.
I whisper encouragement, even though I am unsure whether I can hold her weight as her feet plant themselves on my shoulders. But I must. This is what we know, that the eldest among us must embrace the cruel spikes that we ourselves erected long ago, so the youngest may scramble, unhurt, to freedom.
I press myself against the barbs, willing for them to hold me, to dig deep into my flesh that I may not fall as the children rush up our human ladder. My sister is tall. Her thighs are gripped by the razor wire at the top, holding her steady as she leans over and lifts the young ones and drops them gently into the beyond.
When the last of the younglings have escaped, I reach my hands up to boost my sister over the fence, but her feet are slick with blood. She turns to me, her face pale in the darkness and shakes her head. She pulls away from the fence and begins to climb down. I follow, trying to stay silent as I rip myself away — the pain of release is overwhelming. I reach the ground and help my elder sister to descend. She nods her thanks and we both pull our mother down. She is barely breathing and her face is a ruin, yet she grasps my hand and points back to the fence.
The pain that screams through my body is infinitely better than the silence that attends the old ones. They were the heart of our community, who gave the last of their strength and courage so our young might survive. I check my grandmother. I remember how she had been the first to grasp the fence, pressing every inch of her body against it to ensure a firm foundation, showing us the way, as she always had. Death’s rigor had added nothing to the stern determination of her stance.
My sister touches my hand and we turn away from our elders. Now we who still live must finish what they started. Our fences were built to keep the monsters out, but now they must keep them in. I see my mother crawling towards the gates, she and the most grievously injured will barricade the gates with their bodies. My sister and I join the other daughters. We will set the fires that will cleanse this place of the monsters.
We do not expect to see tomorrow, yet we have hope of life. Our children will return one day and dwell here in safety. We have taught them what they need to know — the joy of community and the skills of living. They will whisper their own dark stories of this night, and remember what they must do to escape, to survive.
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Fiction © Copyright Alex Grehy
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from author Alex Grehy:
Thoughts, Prayers and Other Curses
Alex Grehy (she/her) enjoys writing quirky, thought-provoking horror. Widely published, her latest collection of short stories, Thoughts, Prayers and Other Curses is disturbing, clever and darkly entertaining – a wickedly imaginative journey through ten stories where time and technology have given humankind the chance to be kind, but why bother when there’s always an option to be beastly?
Spreading the Writer's Word 