The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Dark Room
by Linda Lee Rice

The darkness is creeping throughout the room, gobbling up all the light. It leaves the velvety feel of something touching me, like spiderwebs across my skin. The door is locked from the outside and I’ve pounded on it until my hands are bruised.

He said to drink the cup of foul-smelling brew and he’d let me out. The bread is gone but I’ve refused so far to drink from the cup. The liquid is clear but something within it…moves.

I was lost in the woods when I came upon this cabin. Seeking shelter, I stepped inside to perhaps warm myself and seek comfort. He came up behind me, shoved me inside, slammed the door, and locked me in.

The bread in the basket and the cup of liquid were sitting there as if waiting for me. He told me he had been watching me, so he had prepared this small feast. All I had to do was drink and I would be freed.

He looks in the window once the daylight has ceased and the moonlight glows. He whispers to the cup when he’s outside the window and it stirs. His eyes glow in the dark and I can hear his rumbling laughter as he sees me refusing the drink. His teeth look sharper than before, his nails now scrape on the glass.

He is waiting…and I am so thirsty…

Fiction © Copyright Linda Lee Rice.
Image courtesy of Rie Sheridan Rose.

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.