The Ladies of Horror

Haunted
by E.A. Black

Kate Stanwood walked through Nash’s Common on her daily hike, eyeing up shadows behind trees and the burgeoning storm on the horizon. Nash’s Common was five miles of thick woods at the center of the island of Caleb’s Woe. Three-hundred years ago it had functioned as the busy town center, but today an aura of neglect hovered over it, Men had abandoned the Common in the Colonial era to travel by sea for the purposes of war, or to make their fortunes via the fishing and merchant industries along the island’s coast. Some had ventured into piracy. Women and children were left behind for long periods of time to fend for themselves. Frequently, the women were widowed, due to the rough natures of both the sea and war.

Kate had thought of the spirits of those long-dead women and their children whenever she walked the dirt trails that had woven through the Common. She imagined the wraiths, furious and frightened over their predicament, haunting the land around what had once been their homes, waiting for their husbands and brothers to return only to spend eternity completely alone. Such abject isolation and abandonment depressed Kate.

During Kate’s frequent walks through the Common, she often became overwhelmed by the sheer wildness of the area. It demanded awe and respect from her when it permitted her to venture forth. She should have known better than to venture into the Common with a storm approaching. Storms brought forth the ghosts. The woman who suddenly crossed Kate’s path bore Kate’s face, but her hollow eyes and downturned lips revealed centuries of abject torment. She reached for Kate, who, frightened, turned on her heels and ran out of the Common as quickly as she could. She refused to turn around for, like Lot’s wife, she feared her own death.

Fiction © Copyright E. A. Black
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

More from E.A. Black:
Teeming Terrors
Short Story Inclusion: Infection

Nature. Filled with wonder, beauty, majesty and mystery. Also filled with things that want to kill us. Normal things, little ordinary things. Things that creep and crawl. Things that fly, swim, scuttle and slither. Things that you might expect and be rightfully phobic about … as well as things you may have never imagined as a threat. Individually, maybe they wouldn’t be. But that’s just it. They aren’t coming for you individually. They’re coming for you in swarms, in flocks and hordes, in masses and multitudes. They’re coming for you by the thousands. They are … TEEMING TERRORS.

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