The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
The Castle on the Hill
by A.F. Stewart
The first night of the rising blood moon, they all shivered behind closed doors. They fell to their knees and said their prayers, those that lived in the castle on the hill. Dread invaded their dreams like an advancing tide and disturbed their sleep. They shuddered against the dark whispering wind swirling fallen leaves and an icy hint of the coming winter. They flinched when the wolf howled, when the bats fluttered by their windows, when faint moans slithered through the cracks in the walls.
Yet, they believed they were protected from the terror that was coming.
They were not.
They forgot what survived beneath the ground in the graveyard. Waiting for the blood moon, for its chance to crawl from its tomb and live again. They never imagined what would rise in the corpses of their loved ones, in the spirits of their ancestors. They turned a blind eye as it clawed its way to that grand, towering castle, ignored the signs. They believed in the castle’s defenses.
A mistake.
Not stone, nor glass, nor door kept it out.
Their prayers did not keep them safe.
Their locks did not keep it at bay.
Walls did not protect them.
On that last night of the blood moon, in the castle on the hill, their blood ran in rivers of red.
Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from A.F. Stewart:
Horror Haiku Pas de Deux
In the shadows—voices.
Calling, screaming, moaning.
Countless tongues telling tales…
of Hell
of Monsters
and Unnatural Things
Come chase the dark words, fall into the spell of terror and sit with the poetic weaver as you watch the world burn. Horror Haiku Pas de Deux is a volume of poetry mixing horror with haiku and verse to chill your bones.
Poetic beauty lives forever with the undead.
Spreading the Writer's Word 
Reblogged this on All About Writing and more.
Beautifully written. 🙂