The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Ashes of Roses
by Rie Sheridan Rose
She bit her lip when she walked into the study and saw it there…the daily rose placed like an offering on the book she had been reading last evening. So thoughtful of him. Every day, without fail, like a talisman against the dark, a single rose.
She sank down in her desk chair, lifting the flower and twirling it between her fingertips. A dozen thousand days…nearly thirty three years, and every day a rose. She didn’t even like roses. It was one of the reasons…
With a sigh, she pushed to her feet and walked across the room to the fireplace, stirring up the coals to reignite the flames. When their warmth kissed her cheeks, she tossed the blossom into the heart of them. Ashes of roses. Like all the others.
At least it was the last of them. Now that she’d dug up the bush and buried him in its place.
Fiction © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
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?
