The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Vision in a Block of Ice
by Marge Simon

In dawn’s early mist, a woman in a doorway nurses her child and sneers as we march past her building. She isn’t supposed to do this. We are soldiers, men of honor, she should be kneeling. When she spits at me, I fire my torch, her eyes widen and she screams.

We’re told the end is painless, freezing on the spot, but I have doubts, as it takes   ten long minutes for the chill to reach her heart.  When it’s done, the edges of her dark hair glisten. Escher patterned crystals dance in her spectral eyes. The guards come with tongs to place her in the transport van.  But first, with pick and hammer, her husband removes the tiny babe. Even in death she may hold it no more, for she has sinned. The frozen woman will be taken to the temple where relatives may pay respects. Although it is unclear to the villagers why she was shot, they will celebrate this coming weekend. A pity they have so few occasions.

Fiction © Copyright Marge Simon
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from Marge Simon:

The Demeter Diaries
by Marge Simon and‎ Bryan D. Dietrich

‘The Demeter Diaries’ is a record of love and longing and the inevitable horror that arises between the minds of Mina Harker and Vlad Dracula as they court one another in waking dreams. The dialogue, written in both poetry and prose, imagines a psychic connection that develops between the two even before Dracula arrives in England. As Dracula makes his way from Transylvania to Whitby on the doomed ship Demeter, the two would-be lovers transmit their thoughts across the waves and lands that separate them, alternately wooing and terrifying one another with the idea of love eternal and all the dark delicacies necessary to ensure it. Front cover art by Wendy Saber Core, interior illustrations by Luke Spooner.

Available on Amazon!