The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
I Am
by Mary Ann Peden-Coviello
It was their daily routine, and Sally-Anne looked forward to it.
Every. Single. Day.
“Who’s Daddy’s Best Girl?” His voice would boom out as soon as he stepped through the doorway, and his arms would open wide.
“I am! I am!” And she’d leap into those strong, safe Daddy-arms.
Every. Single. Day.
As she grew older, her daddy grew feebler. He couldn’t catch her anymore. Sally-Anne turned to other authorities, to other powers.
Darker powers.
* * * *
Tonight, under the full moon, clad in virginal white, she waits. She gazes deeply into the hourglass, the vessel in which she’s placed the souls she’s collected. She listens to them as they call, wail, beg for release. Only one of the captured souls pulls at what’s left of her heart. She can still hear him calling her “Daddy’s Best Girl.”
But now, in the far distance, she hears another Voice. Deeper. Rumbling like thunder. Shivering her very marrow.
“Who’s Daddy’s Very Worst Girl?”
She turns her face to the night sky.
“I am. I am.”
Fiction © Copyright Mary Ann Peden-Coviello
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from Mary Ann Peden-Coviello:
Fright Mare-Women Write Horror
Short Story: One Hour Before the Dark
Women write horror and have written it since before Mary Shelley wrote FRANKENSTEIN. This anthology is to highlight the fact women write great horror and to kill the fallacy that they aren’t in some way up to standard. They are. Read here stories by Elizabeth Massie, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Lucy Taylor, and a plethora of other great writers as they work on your nerves, get inside your head, and bang out some of the scariest tales written today. I’m proud to present these women for your consideration, as Rod Serling might say, as I ask you to step into FRIGHT MARE. Lock the door and windows, put on a light, and remember, it’s not real. It’s not real. Midnight awaits, monsters scheme to take you away, the strange and weird wait in the shadows, but it’s not real. Is it?
Edited by Billie Sue Mosiman, the author who brought you the SINISTER-TALES OF DREAD collections and her latest suspense novel, THE GREY MATTER.
Please don’t forget to visit the other WiHM 11 projects taking place!
Spreading the Writer's Word 
A wonderful and eerie story.
Creepy. Well written. Outstanding. And I’d love to see this turned into something longer and bigger. It’s got wicked potential.