The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Best Friends Forever   
by Alex Grehy

My name is Jemima and I love to cycle in meadows

and lanes. Do you like my bike? It has a basket for 

goodies, I made it all pretty with ribbons and suchlike.

.

My best friend Jemma, she does the pedals,

‘cause I can’t quite reach. We’re always together, 

though you may not see me, except at the beach

.

Where I’m a shadow on sand, a giggle of wind,

Jemma tells the best tales, and I always listen,

the best are stories of cats, dragons and snails.

.

Jemma once said that computers have brains, not 

flesh, but ‘lectric and wires; so invisible friends, 

like little me, could use them to grant our desires.

.

I may be invisible, but that’s no excuse, the man 

in the big car could see Jemma alright, so why 

did he smash her, leave her dying, then flee?

.

I got mad at the man who killed my best friend,

so I got in his car’s brain and fried it real good,

it seized up and swerved right out of its lane.

.

“I’m not sorry!” I cried when Jemma’s ghost said 

“Ooh you’ve been naughty”. But girls won’t live safe if 

bad men aren’t punished; I knew she’d agree ‘ventually.

.

We rode our bike to the edge of the freeway, stopped 

all the cars driving too fast and wild; locked their doors,

trapped the drivers, let them hunger and thirst ‘til they died.

.

The corpses were a bit stinky but soon rotted away, the 

roads became quiet and safe, so we cycled the freeway

hunting for more meanies and baddies to strafe.

.

I talk to the brains inside of machines, telling the tales

that Ghost Jemma makes up; creepy stories of rascals

and villains, tortured and suffering until they all break.

.

The machines don’t know stories are lies, so they make

them come true – devices ‘lectrocute, explode, burst into

flames – no-one’s safe, they all have them, you know. 

.

Jemma and I are Best Friends Forever, we eat ice-cream 

all day long. No-one can see us as we cycle around,

stalking bad people and righting all wrongs.

.

Fiction © Copyright Alex Grehy
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Alex Grehy:

Alex Grehy’s (she/her) work has been published in a range of zines worldwide including Luna Station Quarterly, Aphotic Realm and The Sirens Call as well as anthologies published by Water Dragon Publishing and Red Penguin. Her essays on being a “Lady of Horror” have featured in the Horror Writers Association Newsletter and The Horror Tree blog. Her words are also available via a global network of prose & poetry dispensers run by French publisher Short Edition.  She is recognised for her original view of the world, expressed in vivid prose and thought-provoking poetry.

Please click here to discover more!