The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
What the Hell is That Thing?
by E.A. Black
When he first saw it, he couldn’t tell what it was. It looked like a Jack O’ Lantern that had been left out in the sun too long. Smelled that way too. It had that slimy green stink of rotting vegetation common in the fall. It wasn’t the scariest demonic face he’d ever seen. It certainly wasn’t as scary as the demon face in the movie The Exorcist. This one looked like a cross between the movie Grinch and a pig’s face. Kinda sad and pathetic.
He laughed at it and it furrowed its eyebrows. The face approached him, glaring at him through the windowpane. He only grinned, secure in his assumption it could not hurt him. It was only a Halloween decoration. Those things were pretty elaborate these days.
After all, demons weren’t real.
Then it slid through the window, inches from his face. He pushed his hands against it to ward it off. It felt warm to the touch and slippery, like the pulpy innards of a spent pumpkin. He tried to wipe the detritus onto his shirt but it only stuck to his fingers.
Then, his hands heated. His skin felt as if it were on fire. Scorching shards of pain shot through every joint in his body. As he collapsed, he looked at the thing hovering over him with its lopsided rictus of a leer.
He should not have mocked it.
Fiction © Copyright E. A. Black
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from E.A. Black:
Teeming Terrors
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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