The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Childhood Nightmares
by A.F. Stewart

Why am I here?
I stared at the thing, like some Eldritch horror or a mutant snuffleupagus on steroids. It smiled at me.
You are here because I brought you at last. And I am not an Eldritch horror; they pale in comparison to me. And I have no idea what a snuffleupagus is.
And the smell… roses mixed with rotting fish and a touch of sulphur. It made me gag.
You don’t smell particularly nice either. All sweat and salt, and… I’m uncertain what but it’s sickening.
I pinched myself, but it didn’t help, it only hurt. I wasn’t dreaming.
Of course you’re not dreaming. You weren’t dreaming as a child either. I’m quite real. I’ve always been real.
It reached out a nose tentacle and stroked my hair. I shuddered. The touch was cold and clammy, and the smell. Why did it smell? I gagged and coughed, choking down bile. It wrapped the tentacle around my body, and then another and another. I choked on the smell, the ever present smell, throwing up as it dragged me in closer. I looked it in the eyes. I should have been afraid. Why wasn’t I afraid? This felt… inevitable.
It is. It always has been. Because we know each other. We are destined. I’ve been with you since you were a child. Waiting until you were ready.
Ready for what?
To be eaten of course.
I finally screamed as I saw his teeth.
I remembered. I had been here before. Done this before.
Then came the pain. And the smell. I remembered the smell. Always the smell. I choked on it as his teeth ground through my bones and ripped my flesh apart, felt it ooze around me as I died. And then nothing…

Why am I here?
I stared at the thing, like some Eldritch horror or a mutant snuffleupagus on steroids.
It smiled at me.

Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from A.F. Stewart:

Hell’s Empire: Tales of the Incursion

A unique anthology of two thrones at war as the forces of Hell assault an unsuspecting Victorian Britain.The cry went out to theologians and engineers, to artificers and antiquarians, to every name which could be named. By telegraph where lines were still intact, and by volunteer riders where they were not; smuggled along the coast in fishing smacks, semaphored from hill-tops. It came without royal sanction, issued jointly by the Lords of the Admiralty and Marquess Lansdowne, the new Secretary of State for War:”In God’s name, help us. We are losing.”

Available on Amazon!