The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Where We Dwell
by A.F. Stewart
Ghosts dwell in the ruins on the hill.
Figuratively, possibly literally.
Stories abound, although no one has ever seen a spectre; that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Locals avoid the place, but tourists flock there. To take their selfies, to marvel at history. Of course, they always go in the sunshine, under blue skies.
Never at night.
Not in the dark, under the moon, when the wind whispers in your ear and the shadows move, when the skin on the back of your neck prickles. The place where the old gods linger beneath the world. When the breath of creation descends into the darkness and the heartbeat of things unseen pounds a steady rhythmic pulse of awareness. When all the innocent tourists are safely tucked into their beds, lost in their sweet, oblivious dreams.
I’m the only one awake, roaming the ruins after midnight.
Watching, making sure all the safeguards are still in place.
All the bodies.
This is where I bury the sacrifices, the privileged ones. Those unique tourists who will never make it home. The ones no one will miss. Lives taken to appease what abides beneath the rubble. To keep them contained.
To keep them fed.
So, you see, ghosts live within ruins.
Ghosts and other things.
.
Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image © Copyright Alex Grehy
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.
