The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

To See a Ship…
by Rie Sheridan Rose

Nothing…still nothing.

Not surprising, but I keep hope.

I keep the light in service—shining its beam out into the endless sea. The sun rises; the sun sets; the world turns round. But nothing breaks the plane of the horizon. A thousand, thousand hours…more than a century…I’ve climbed these stairs to stare out to sea. Nothing ever changes but the color of the water as the sun rises and falls.

This lighthouse was an outpost originally. A bastion in the forward fight. A hundred ships a day steaming past the point. It set the heart a-thundering.

But day by day the numbers dwindled…fewer ships returned to port each time they docked. The sky blazed with streaks of light—never dark enough to see the stars at the height of things. They were fighting far enough away that I couldn’t hear the booms, but I could see those streaks of light—and the ships no longer returning.

I was the only keeper at this lighthouse. No family. No friends. No one to notice if I lived or died. No one to remember to say “Stand down.” No one at all.

So, I keep the light in service. I catch the glowing fish beneath the sea for food…I catch the rain that falls for drink. I glow a little myself at night…it amuses me.

But I have not seen a ship for years and years. Each day I climb the stairs…I stare out to sea. It’s all I live for now…my hope one day…

…to once more see a ship.

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!