The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Mardi Gras
by Linda Lee Rice
The streets are quiet this year during the pandemic. Mardi Gras is a shadow of what I can remember in my many seasons. Stores are shuttered, crowds are light, if any, my favorite shop closed with the decorative costumes just out of reach. But I have my costume on; only the mask is lacking to be complete.
Ah, the Mardi Gras memories! People were laughing, singing, drunken, and boisterous…and screaming. I always loved the screaming the best. Unaware of being prey while I’m the predator, just another beautiful woman that blends in the crowd, but different.
Red has always been my favorite color. The darker, the better. Shiny red, the way it glistened under the gaslights and now the streetlights. The crimson now looking black in the darkness with the lovely metallic taste warming my blood.
But, alas, this year is so different, and my needs are accelerated. Even though the Mardi Gras is canceled, my body isn’t aware and craves that which it can’t access.
But wait! What’s that sound? Laughter, muttering, drunken weaving steps? From the corner of the building, a lone figure steps down into the pavement. Looking up, he sees me and waves forlornly as he steps forward.
As I greet him, smiling wildly, he finally sees the insanity and hunger in my eyes. Lurching backward, he makes for escape, but I’m too quick and hungry. As he lies there gasping his last breath, I ask him if he likes my mask, now dripping in the light. My costume is complete.
Fiction © Copyright Linda Lee Rice.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More about Linda Lee Rice:
Linda Lee Rice aka Ruzicka has poetry published in Twilight Times, Dark Krypt, Fables, Descending Darkness, Writing Village, Spine, and Page, Muses Gallery, Bloodbond, Lycan Valley Press Publishers, Alban Lake, Highland Park Poetry, Rosette Maleficarum, The Siren’s Call, Edify Fiction and the June Cotner anthology, “House Blessings” and “Garden Blessings
She has short stories published in The Grit, and Reminisce, Haunted Encounters: Friends and Family, FrostFire Worlds. Plus, a personal essay at Mamalode. She also has various articles and blogs published online as a freelance writer.
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Spreading the Writer's Word 
A terrific story.
I love the atmosphere of this piece – the pall of the pandemic and the strange feeling of “serves them right” for the victim who’s broken “curfew” – says a lot about how our values change when there are seen and unseen threats in the air.