The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Wrong Turn
by Bailey Hunter

I took a wrong turn. Truth be told, I’ve taken a lot of wrong turns in life, but this one… this one has gone so far off the rails.

It started off like every bad decision. A few beers with the guys. An agreement that I knew was best not made. Next thing I know, I’m running down some rank back alley with a small posse pushing me deeper into the dark places only addicts and the invisible lurk.

I should have known it was too good. Timing too perfect. Who trusts a strange dude looking more dead than alive offering an out? This idiot, that’s who.  But in my defense, it was the open door he offered as an escape from my pursuers that I desperately needed. I probably would have jumped into an open sewer hatch if it meant I could remain breathing with all limbs intact.

Now the pursuit continues, only it’s not a pack of angry dude-bros after me. It’s the darkness. It’s been chasing me down these stairs for what seems like weeks. I tried going back but there is no back. Just the blackness. No stairs left behind me to climb, only the ones in front of me as the blackness pushes me further down. I don’t know where I’m going to end up. I don’t know if there is even an end. I do know I’m down a whole left hand and a wrist. The blackness took them when I reached into it. Now I just run forward, downward, deeper and deeper into nowhere with nothingness to turn back to.

I’m not sure if it’s hope, fear, or just blind instinct that’s keeping me going. I took a wrong turn, and I’m starting to wonder if an end does exist, that maybe the nothingness is actually a better choice.

Fiction © Copyright Bailey Hunter
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Bailey Hunter:
Bailey is a publisher with Dark Recesses Press.

Staking Cinderella

Gavin’s got a serious problem. A “praise Jee-sus,” rich-bitch caught him fanging—and banging—his Halloween date. Now she’s playing Holy Vampire Killer, and it’s ticking him off.

Since then, Gavin’s found someone better to occupy his mind and heart. Isolde—in bed, on the couch, in the shower. She has a thing for Disney princesses, but he’s willing to overlook it. Women like her only come around once or twice in five hundred years. He knows.

When Isolde is kidnapped to bait a deathtrap for Gavin, he’s torn between two truths…abandoning Isolde is unthinkable, but rescuing her could mean death for both of them.

DarkRecessesPress.com