Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Rie Sheridan Rose @RieSheridanRose @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on September 21, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_03_Sept2021It’s Pretty Here, Isn’t It?
by Rie Sheridan Rose

Sometimes, I come down here to the remains of the dock and look out over the endless sea and remember how things used to be. You’d never know it to look at it now, but this island was once a humming hub of activity.
There was a boardwalk here, in the Before Times—that is what the kids are still calling it these days, isn’t it—full of lights and sounds…people playing the games, trying to win a silly stuffed dog. Usually losing. Spending all their pocket change for one more throw, or roll, or toss.
The ferris wheel was right over there, and you could see for miles from the top of it. The young men would bribe the operator to stop their car at the top of the wheel, and the girls would pretend not to know they’d done it. Of course, since they all did it, a peck or two on the cheek was the most they had time for.
One end of the boardwalk had a Laffy Taffy stand, and the other had a Hot Dog place. I can still smell them some nights. They say smells are linked to memories, but sometimes I think it is the other way around…
This was our world. We loved it here. So many people, so much to do and see. A feast for all the senses. 
And then the rains came.
The sky opened up and didn’t stop for twelve days. People started joking about a second flood on day four. By day eight, there wasn’t anyone left to joke. The buildings, the boardwalk, the beautiful people, it all washed away…
All that is left are these few broken teeth of wood where the pilings were, and me. I couldn’t leave, you see—water, water everywhere, and not a thing to drink. I don’t know why you’ve come, but I am awfully glad you did. The sun hasn’t quite broken the horizon, so I can still get us back to my coffin. Here I was, going to face the dawn—but you’ve given this old vampire a second chance!
Fiction © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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Overheard in Hell:
Dark Poetry

Poems exploring hell and damnation. Tales of sorrow, vengeance, betrayal, and redemption. Ghosts, ghouls, and demons stalk these pages. Don’t read in a lonely house…in a darkened room by a single candle…

…unless you like the touch of an icy finger up your spine.

Available on Amazon!

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Alina Măciucă @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on September 20, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_02_Sept2021Maybe I Should
by Alina Măciucă

A saucer magnolia tree sprang from my grave
a long time before I
contemplated
how many
seasons
have passed since my enterrement.
I sometimes grab its roots when I toss and turn.
We hold hands.

The bee that just stung you
— so much pain caused by such a tiny creature —
has been foraging on its flowers
for quite a while,
and that minuscule tear in your skin
is a door for me to go in
and make myself comfortable
inside you.
I haven’t decided yet, though.
If I leave, the saucer magnolia
will wither
without my hand to hold.
I could bring it with me, and an abundance
magnolia flowers would grow out of
your mouth, your ears, your nostrils.
I just hope you don’t mind bees
that much.
Fiction © Copyright Alina Măciucă
Image courtesy of  Pixabay.comline_separator2

More about Alina Măciucă:

meblurAlina Măciucă enjoys reading, writing, buying odd trinkets, and taking photos of beautifully decaying buildings. She has formally studied religion and hermeneutics at the University of Bucharest, and really has a thing for the Greco-Roman mysteries and Gnosticism, as well as for Renaissance magic. She lives in Bucharest with her very supportive boyfriend, their two cats, and an ever-expanding vinyl and book collection.

 

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Elaine Pascale @DocLaney @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on September 20, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_01_Sept2021Gyda
by Elaine Pascale

It was after she had beaten up every boy in her village that Bridgette learned she was descended from Harald Brunoson, the most powerful chieftain in their history. 
The boys had earned their pummels. They had been hurtful, as they were with all the girls, as their fathers were with all the women. This bad treatment had been the norm for as long as Bridgette could remember. 
When not treating the women poorly, the men recounted sagas of Harald. They told of his mighty axe that was lined with razor sharp teeth that pulled the skin off anyone it met. Harald had been buried with his axe and Bridgette vowed to retrieve it.
They told her quests were not for females. They tried to lock her inside her home, to pin her with responsibilities.
“I will enact my revenge,” she thought as she fought everyone off and started her trek.
At the top of the mountain, she shouted at Harald’s grave. A light spun from the ground. Twisting, it turned into a woman who was cloaked in armor but had a face that would melt the heart of any man. 
“I thought you were my forefather, Harald,” Bridgette said.
“I am Gyda; there is no Harald.” The woman flashed her razor-sharp teeth. “And I am the axe.” She pointed to the other graves. “We are all weapons. These legends the men tell are lies.” She clapped and tall, strong women rose from the dirt. 
“Let us enact our revenge,” Gyda ordered. She and the other women turned back into lights that pounced on the village as it slept.
The men who had been so hurtful were now hurt themselves in ways that were both indescribable and too horrible to be told in the sagas.
Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image courtesy of Pixaby.com

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More from Elaine Pascale:

The Blood Lights

They victimize all…

Jezzie Mitchell is in anguish; with her brother’s murder still on her mind, she’s noticed strange behavior among the girls in the residential treatment center where she works. Is there a connection between the contagion on Cape Cod and the deadly Bahamas vacation that changed her life?

Jezzie reaches out to former lover Lou Collins, a scholar who has chased proof of the lights for decades. Will he be able to solve the mystery of the lights in time?

Intensely competitive, reporter Bridgette Collins knows the lights are a way to secure fame in her career. And while it’ll put the final nail into the coffin of her ex-husband’s career, she vows to know the secrets of the lights. Even if it means unleashing a world-wide epidemic…

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Asena Lourenco @ElaLourenco @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_04_Aug2021To Bare a Flame
by Asena Lourenco

I guess I’d never given much thought to death.
But all I knew was that it came by a series of unexpected turns. 
Or at least for me, for I didn’t see it coming.
The wind freshened the night’s sticky heat and the dripping blades of grass sparkled as they did routinely, what could have been amiss? 
And in the same way, the soles of my black patented heels rubbed my blisters in an unpleasant manner as I walked up the driveway, just as they did every other Friday night. The flickering lantern on the porch was lit to greet me as it always was, the only change was that he wasn’t. Although, it wasn’t exactly like alarm bells sounded in my brain at this, no, I merely thought that perhaps he was buying another loaf of bread, or something of the sort. And so, I continued into our home, resting my aching feet on the coffee table, whilst awaiting my love to return home, and he did just that. As I heard a car door shut, I wandered back into the fading dusk. But now something really was amiss. The warmth of the familiar lantern had been switched for three tall candles, and instead of being greeted with my husband holding a warm loaf of bread, I was greeted with him, holding a bread knife.
Fiction © Copyright Asena Lourenco
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

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More about Asena Lourenco:

Asena Lourenco is 14 years old. She loves reading, playing Scottish traditional fiddle music on her violin, dancing, and martial arts as well as writing her own stories.

She would like to be a teacher and writer when she grows up. She also loves cats and babies!

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Mary Ann Peden-Coviello @MAPedenCoviello @darc_nina #LoH

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_03_Aug2021

Like a Lamb
by Mary Ann Peden-Coviello

Their song awakens me in the middle of the night, calling me to them. I slip from my warm bed and creep out of the house. I leave my mother and father, my two sisters and my baby brother all asleep. I wonder for a moment that none of them have wakened to the singing, not even our dog. Only me. But then the song tugs at my heart again, and I close the door and turn toward the Hill. 
Silence rules this night. No insect whirs. No hunter bruises a leaf beneath a stealthy paw. The song fills my ears with its insistent call. My bare feet whisper through the grass. I don’t notice how cold the damp blades feel against the soles of my feet. All my attention is on the song.
The path takes a steeper turn as it leads up the Hill. I stumble a time or two over rocks or tree roots I cannot see in the moonlight. At last, I reach the summit, with its crown of stacked boulders. The singing deafens me now, so loud it fills the whole world. 
The white-clad singers slip out from behind the boulders, from behind the altar. They seize me and lay me atop the cold slab of stone. I am the Honored One, the Gift for the Harvest. If I feel any fear, the song eases it. 
I almost don’t even feel the knives. 
***
In the morning, every mother, every father looked –hearts in their mouths – to see if their daughters were safe in their beds. In every house but one, joy reigned. Those girls had been passed over for another year.
In one, however, wails of grief were stifled. One daughter, loved by her family, had been seduced away in the night to be Honored as a Lamb.
Fiction © Copyright Mary Ann Peden-Coviello
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

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More from Mary Ann Peden-Coviello:

maryannpedencoviello_frightmareFright Mare-Women Write Horror
Short Story: One Hour Before the Dark

Women write horror and have written it since before Mary Shelley wrote FRANKENSTEIN. This anthology is to highlight the fact women write great horror and to kill the fallacy that they aren’t in some way up to standard. They are. Read here stories by Elizabeth Massie, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Lucy Taylor, and a plethora of other great writers as they work on your nerves, get inside your head, and bang out some of the scariest tales written today. I’m proud to present these women for your consideration, as Rod Serling might say, as I ask you to step into FRIGHT MARE. Lock the door and windows, put on a light, and remember, it’s not real. It’s not real. Midnight awaits, monsters scheme to take you away, the strange and weird wait in the shadows, but it’s not real. Is it?

Edited by Billie Sue Mosiman, the author who brought you the SINISTER-TALES OF DREAD collections and her latest suspense novel, THE GREY MATTER.

Available on Amazon!

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Angela Yuriko Smith @AngelaYSmith @darc_nina #LoH

Posted on August 28, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_01_Aug2021

A Fun Guy
by Angela Yuriko Smith

“A fun guy,” he said.
“All about the party games.”
So I went with him.
I love playing games
I thought. Now hide-and-go-seek
keeps me laying here
bored to mossy tears
my only companions now
earthworms and fungi
Fiction © Copyright Angela Yuriko Smith
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

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More from Angela Yuriko Smith:

Angela Yuriko Smith is an American poet, author and co-publisher of Space and Time magazine, a publication that has been printing speculative fiction, art and poetry since 1966. Together we build a poem as a community each month. Visit “Exquisite Corpse” at SpaceandTime.net to submit.

Catch up with Angela here!

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Christina Sng @ChristinaSng @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on August 27, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


Image_04_Aug2021Three Candles
by Christina Sng

I light three candles
To tell them
Not to come back,
That our city is overrun
And there is no hope
For us left behind.
We huddle on the rooftop
In the abyssal darkness
Waiting for death, hoping
The cold will take us
Gently into the eternal sleep
Before our enemies breach
The steel access door
And tear us from limb to limb,
Eating us alive.
The fires they set
Create a thick haze
Across the sky,
Pressing the winter frost
Down onto us. The deep
And debilitating chill
Permeates all
Of our hiding places,
Driving us to the warmth
Of the buildings,
Straight into their bloody arms
Where we will be devoured
Or worse,
Turned into one of them
And sent out into the world
To eat the people we love
Gladly—
And without remorse
Because
We will no longer be
Capable of love.
They will come if we ask;
They, who got out
During the evacuation.
They, who now watch
The street cams for our signal:
The lit candles.
They will come for us
Because they love us
And they will gladly die trying.
With our enemy’s tentacles
All over this city,
They will not make it.
Three candles means
There is no saving us.
It means:
There is no hope.
Do not come—
It is over for us.
We hold each other
And wait for the sunrise,
For the bombs to arrive.
Fiction © Copyright Christina Sng
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

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More from Christina Sng:

A Collection of Nightmares

Hold your screams and enter a world of seasonal creatures, dreams of bones, and confessions modeled from open eyes and endless insomnia. Christina Sng’s A Collection of Nightmares is a poetic feast of sleeplessness and shadows, an exquisite exhibition of fear and things better left unsaid. Here are ramblings at the end of the world and a path that leads to a thousand paper cuts at the hands of a skin carver. There are crawlspace whispers, and fresh sheets gently washed with sacrifice and poison, and if you’re careful in this ghost month, these poems will call upon the succubus to tend to your flesh wounds and scars.
These nightmares are sweeping fantasies that electrocute the senses as much as they dull the ache of loneliness by showing you what’s hiding under your bed, in the back of your closet, and inside your head. Sng’s poems dissect and flower, her autopsies are delicate blooms dressed with blood and syntax. Her words are charcoal and cotton, safe yet dressed in an executioner’s garb.
Dream carefully.
You’ve already made your bed.
The nightmares you have now will not be kind.
And you have no one to blame but yourself.

Available on Amazon!

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Alyson Faye @AlysonFaye2 @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on August 27, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


Image_03_Aug2021
Beneath
by Alyson Faye

The local children swarmed like flies over the giant rocks, calling out to each other, giddy on fizzy drinks and fresh air, the older ones sneaking fags behind the raised claw-like rocks. In the rock’s hollows nestled coke cans, scraps of paper, feathers, and tab ends.
‘I see a baby whale. Just there on the bottom left hand side,’ shouted one child to his mum, who barely glanced up from her phone.
‘Nah, it’s an alien planet and we’re the invading soldiers,’ cried her brother, armed with his bright orange Nerf gun.
A hiking couple paused, gazed up at the late dusk ombre sky, and commented on how the piled up rocks resembled a giant playing a game of prehistoric Jenga.
Another child clung to the thumb of the mittened fist rock shape, swinging out over the moor, shouting, ‘I’m Tarzan!’  His scraped knees bled a sprinkling of droplets onto the moss and was soon absorbed.
When night fell, all the human traffic vanished, leaving the rocks alone with the stars and its memories. The moss buzzed with life, the insects scurried and burrowed and beneath the ground the monster slept, as it had for hundreds of years.
Most of its carcass was hidden in the caves below, only its furthest extremities were on display up above. Only the tips of its tail, and its rock-like scales protruded.
As the behemoth slept it dreamed of minute insects making high-pitched sounds, scrabbling over its hard-plated body, irritating and bothersome, but not worth waking up for. Occasionally in its sleep the creature would shift and above ground a corresponding crack fractured the rocks. Blood split above fed its carcass, soothing it.
Once it had been hungry and consumed everything in its path, but the spell placed upon it kept it somnolent. The Ancients had plied their magicke well, with skill.
Inside its heart an ancient strand of code lay dormant, waiting for the day it would spark to life and erupt, tearing apart the world above.
Fiction © Copyright Alyson Faye
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Alyson Faye:

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The Lost Girl & Spindleshanks

The Lost Girl
A nailed-up door. An inheritance which comes with a ghost. A missing girl. A fifty-year-old mystery. Parapsychologist Berkley Osgood is hired to investigate. What he uncovers reveals secrets the living want to hide and the dead will never forgive.

Spindleshanks
Adam is having nightmares about a skeletal shadow figure, who he calls Spindleshanks. Soon his whole class are sharing the same nightmare. Adam’s dad, Rob, knows that Spindleshanks can’t be real. But is he? One terrible night Rob has to face his son’s nightmare creature and fight for his son’s life. What would you sacrifice to have your child back safe?

“A decent two-for-one. Alyson Faye brings the engaging and eerie in equal measure.” CC Adams – horror / dark fiction author

Available on Amazon!

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Alex Grehy @indigodreamers @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on August 26, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_02_Aug2021

Tock Tock Tock
by Alex Grehy

William the watchmaker, divorced four times, never understood the human mind. “Too messy!” he thought as his wives broke free. All he wanted was a tock to his tick and, living alone, it could never be.
Tick..Tick..Tick..Tick
He decided to make a new wife. Clockwork, of course, over which he had complete mastery. A cunning escapement would keep her in check. He’d manufacture a mate who’d look good, never argue, meet his wants utterly.
Tick..Tock – Tick..Tock
His first was a mimic who followed him accurately. It was fun for a while, then it was tedious, then one day he thought “She’s too much like me!” 
Tick….Tick, Tick…Tick
He took her back to the workshop and pulled off her head; then he hammered the rest down for parts, which he spread on his bench and started again.
His second was random, sometimes obedient, his soulmate and friend; sometimes unruly and out of control. Her arrhythmic nature he could not transcend.
Tick…Tock – Tick…Not
He beat her to teach her, but still she rebelled. He dragged her into his workshop and pulled off her head. He cast it aside and it landed, unsmiling, in the bin with the first, little guessing they still had enough life for a curse. Oblivious to her suffering, he drew out her innards and started again. 
His third was the charm. Accomplished and lovely, she tocked to his tick. But then he thought, “Did I just hear tock…tick?”
Tick…Tock – Tock…Tick
He grabbed her hand roughly and pulled her towards him, intending, as always, to fix her up good. A tap with a hammer should align her skewed gears. But she pulled him back sharply and hissed in his ears “Dear husband, I cannot abide your dominion, it’s your turn to hurt and play the minion.”
With one hand she held him, her strength was uncanny. She climbed up the tower and lofted him high, snagging his collar on clock’s hour hand. His heart raced as he wriggled, but time would not free him, not quite yet. 
TOCK…tick, tick, tick
She gathered her sisters, their beautiful faces now bright with malice, their eyes filled with avenging tears. She set them down gently and said “Watch! Now he’ll find out what it’s like to be driven by another’s clockwork desires.”
TOCK…TOCK…TOCK – tick, tick, tick
Upright at midnight he felt very secure, but he started to dangle as the hours passed by. At three he was swaying from the tip of the hand; at six, he would slip and would fall to his doom. His wives’ laughter chimed as the hour drew nigh.
Tick…tiiiiiiiiick…splatt!
TOCK…TOCK…TOCK
TOCK…TOCK…TOCK
Fiction © Copyright Alex Grehy
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from author Alex Grehy:

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After a lifetime of writing technical non-fiction, Alex Grey is fulfilling her dream of writing poems and stories that engage the reader’s emotions. Her work has been featured by a wide range of publications including Siren’s Call, Raconteur, Bookends Review, and Toasted Cheese. One of her comic poems is also available via a worldwide network of public fiction dispensers managed by French publisher, Short Edition. Her ingredients for contentment are narrow boating, greyhounds, singing and chocolate. It is a sweet life, yet Alex’ original view of the world has led to her best friend to say ‘For someone so lovely, you’re very twisted!

Please click here to discover more!   

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Elaine Pascale @DocLaney @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on August 26, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_01_Aug2021Let’s Dance
by Elaine Pascale

“Come fairies, take me from this dull world,” she recited.
Brian smiled. “You believe in sprites?”
She wasn’t sure what she believed in anymore. What she couldn’t believe was her luck. Brian had seemed to magically materialize into her life. She had only known him a few short days, but they had become inseparable, and he had all the qualities she had always desired.
“I want to believe,” she said.
“They are not as nice as you would think,” he told her as they followed the path into the woods. “They make you dance until you die.”
“You make it sound almost romantic.”
They stopped near a ring of red-topped mushrooms.
“Dancing is romantic if done properly,” he said as he pulled her close. “Let’s dance.”
She leaned against him, taking in his sweet, honey-suckle smell. He sang softly in her ear, enchanting her so that she barely noticed the sudden emptiness around them. So lulled was she by their swaying that she ignored the startling change in temperature.
When she tilted her head closer to his shoulder, she saw couples enjoying a picnic on the grass nearby. In what seemed like mere seconds, they had devoured food and bottles of wine.  She saw a game of catch played and ended in what she thought was a minute. She saw children play and frolic. While Brian sang the song over and over, those same children left and returned: older, fully grown.  
She realized that no one could see her, dancing with this miraculous man. She patted him on the shoulder, to tell him she wanted to stop. His face changed; he was miraculous in a frightening way now.
When the children returned, old, she felt a coldness run through her. She wanted to call out, to tell them she was tired. She wanted Brian to stop singing. Or, at least, sing a different song.
She knew it would never stop; she knew she had to dance.
Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image courtesy of Pixaby.com

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More from Elaine Pascale:

The Blood Lights

They victimize all…

Jezzie Mitchell is in anguish; with her brother’s murder still on her mind, she’s noticed strange behavior among the girls in the residential treatment center where she works. Is there a connection between the contagion on Cape Cod and the deadly Bahamas vacation that changed her life?

Jezzie reaches out to former lover Lou Collins, a scholar who has chased proof of the lights for decades. Will he be able to solve the mystery of the lights in time?

Intensely competitive, reporter Bridgette Collins knows the lights are a way to secure fame in her career. And while it’ll put the final nail into the coffin of her ex-husband’s career, she vows to know the secrets of the lights. Even if it means unleashing a world-wide epidemic…

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment