The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Bottle Bees
by A.F. Stewart

Mama had a habit of leaving her soda pop bottles on the porch, just a little bit of liquid still lingering in the bottom. That attracted bees, crawling over the top of the glass like flies; some even flew inside and drowned in the sugary remnants.

I always felt sad, but Mama laughed.

“Serves ‘em right,” she’d say.

Mama was cruel like that. Never gave a weaker creature a chance if she could lord it over you. Make you squirm or hurt. She liked hurting people. Especially me. Funny thing, she never did realize what she was teaching me.

Not ‘til the day I took the hammer to her head and bashed her skull in. Right there on the porch next to the bottle bees.

“Serves you right,” I whispered, and then buried her beside that porch. I planted flowers on top of her remains, pretty ones to attract the bees. They deserved better than Mama’s cruelty. We both did.

Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from A.F. Stewart:

Visions and Nightmares

Tragedy spares no one… and takes no prisoners.
In the twilight shadows, secrets are revealed past the whispers of madness.

Wander into the realm of the old gods with Elenora, where humanity and marriage are a prison.
Step through a looking glass of dark horrors with an Alice you never knew.
Join with Zenna to seek the truth as her death by magic grows closer.
Journey with Olivia as she crosses paths with a monster of the forest and runs for her life.
Watch Isobel summon the faerie to solve her problem of an unwanted husband.
Shiver as Doctor Killbride experiments with corpses to create life from death.
All that and more await within the pages.

Ten stories. Ten women.
Who will survive? Who will fall? And who will succumb to their inner evil?
Find out in Visions and Nightmares.

Warning: This book contains disturbing scenes that may be upsetting to some readers.

Available on Amazon!