The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The New Boy
by Rie Sheridan Rose

“Do you see him?” One asked.

“Not yet…” answered Two.

“Maybe he won’t come. Maybe he’ll be perfect,” Four replied timidly, crouching behind the others.

Three hugged himself tight. “Oh, I hope he likes us. It’s been so long since there was a new boy.”

One sighed. “It’s better when there isn’t, Three. It means he’s either done it, or given up. Do you want more of us here in this cave? Starving for food and attention? Falling apart like Two there?” He gestured at Two, missing an arm and a foot. “He’s gotten a bit better on the outside.” He pointed at Four. “But now the mind’s going…”

Four protested. “I’m not—”

“Hush, boy. My point is that we wouldn’t wish this existence on anyone else, now would we?”

Noises at the mouth of the cave…

“Freeze!” One ordered. “Silence.”

A stumbling figure falls to its knees in the center of the cave.

“Welcome…Five.”

Fiction © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Author Rie Sheridan Rose:

Skellyman

“I have always preferred the supernatural in tales of horror, the knot between life and death. Rie Sheridan Rose’s Skellyman is cool and creepy. Her first horror novel is a chilling read.” — Charlee Jacob – Stoker winner, Best novel, “Dread in the Beast”

Brenda Barnett is trying to cope with raising her four-year-old daughter all alone after an accident tore her family in half. As she and Daisy go for a much-needed treat, the little girl spots a Skellyman on the corner.

This pivotal encounter leads to a wave of mounting terror as Brenda’s life begins to come undone around her. Who is the Skellyman? Why does he keep appearing? Can the sympathetic policeman Brenda turns to stop the madness before it is too late?

And why does Daisy insist that her dead brother is trying to tell them something important?

Available on Amazon!