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

Posted on May 26, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

01_MAY_LOH

Lost Spirits
by Angela Yuriko Smith

The ghosts glide with us
at midnight, on the canal
as we all float home.
Our mortality
in different stages of life—
some post, some present.
It’s all a matter
of where you now stash your soul…
spirits in bottles
or spirits in pews
or spewed in back alley darks…
all are still lost souls.
I am in between.
Too much liquor in my veins
tangled in the veil
aimlessly floating…
somewhere. Home, Hell or Heaven?
It doesn’t matter.
We are now just ghosts
at midnight, on the canal
as we all float home.
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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Lifetime Achievement Award Winner – Marge Simon!

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

A very well deserved Lifetime Achievement Award for Marge Simon!

TheDamned's avatarPen of the Damned

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Marge Simon for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association at this year’s 2021 StokerCon!

Marge Simon, Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Marge Simon lives in Ocala, Florida with her husband, poet/writer Bruce Boston and the ghosts of two cats. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, “Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side.” Marge’s poems and stories have appeared in Pedestal Magazine, Asimov’s, Crannog, Silver Blade, Bete Noire, New Myths, Daily Science Fiction. She attends the ICFA annually as a guest poet/writer and is on the board of the Speculative Literary Foundation. She has won the Rhysling, several Stoker’s and the Strange Horizons Reader’s Award. She is the second woman to be acknowledged by the SF &F Poetry Association with a Grand Master Award.

Marge has been a member of Pen of the Damned since June 2019. If you’d like to reach…

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

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

04_MAY_LOHHoly Fire (Ergot Sclerotia)
by Alina Măciucă

Ignis sacer,
Glorious butcher of dreams.
Not our sins, but our bread
In death and madness has united us,
Stormed our flesh and spirits.
Sorrow bringer, enclosed us into an
Arabesque of pain.
Colossal scourge, you have consumed us in
Ecstasy, and blackened our limbs with
Rot.
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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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Alex Grehy @indigodreamers @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

03_MAY_LOH

Soul Song
by Alex Grehy

These tunnels are my home now
The darkness is my new best friend.
My guitar’s soul is pacified
If we stay underground, alone.
I’m all alone, alone, so alone
I’m all alone, alone, so alone
I’m all alone, alone, so alone
Alone, alone, alone
Shadows sleep here, in the darkness,
My guitar dreams, watchful silence,
Light wakes shadows, soul devourers,
Footsteps echo, like a drumbeat,
Run to refuge, run to darkness.
It started when I was young,
I bought this guitar from a friend,
Who’d died in pain, suicide,
I did not know his soul survived.
His soul plays on, plays on, plays on
His soul plays on, plays on, plays on
His soul plays on, plays on, plays on
plays on, plays on, plays on 
Shadows sleep here, in the darkness,
My guitar dreams, watchful silence,
Light wakes shadows, soul devourers
Footsteps echo, like a drumbeat,
Run to refuge, run to darkness.
Woken by light, his ghost appears,
Don’t touch his shadow, it brings death.
Your life force is within his grasp,
His soul song calls, try to resist.
He wants you, run, run, run away
He needs you, run, run, run away
He craves you, run, run, run away
Run, run, run, run away.
Shadows sleep here, in the darkness,
My guitar dreams, watchful silence,
Light wakes shadows, soul devourers
Footsteps echo, like a drumbeat,
Run to refuge, run to darkness.
Run to refuge
Run to darkness
Run…
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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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Melissa R. Mendelson @melissmendelson @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on May 24, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

02_MAY_LOH

There are no Greater Heights
by Melissa R. Mendelson

“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“It’s too late to turn back now.”  Jason looked down.  Heights normally never bothered him, but they were too high.  He could see the tip of the tower.  He checked his belt, making sure that it was secure.  He did not want to fall.  “Are we crazy to be doing this,” he asked his friend.
“No, because none of this is real.  All we have to do is touch the sky.  That’s it.”  His friend clung to the tip of the tower.  His fingers reached upward.  “Almost there,” he said.
“Wait.”  His friend looked at him.  “What if we’re wrong about this?  What if nothing happens?”
“Well, if nothing happens, then we’ll ask for the red pill.”
“That red pill killed all our friends,” Jason said.  “Their insides imploded.  It was horrible watching them die.”
“Which is why this was our only other option.”  His friend sighed.  “The sooner we interrupt the system, the sooner we could get out into the real world, which isn’t here.”
“And how do we do that exactly?”
“We fall.”  His friend was serious.  “We cause the glitch.  The system’s interrupted, and we let go.”
Jason looked down again.  The world was so far away, and the idea of falling was worse than imploding.  What if his friend was wrong?  What if there was no waking up, and only the ground greeted him from below?
“Jason, it’s now or never,” his friend snapped at him.
“Do it,” Jason whispered.  “Do it,” he repeated louder.
Jason clung to the tip of his tower as his friend reached upward.  His friend’s fingers touched the sky.  Nothing happened.  No system error or glitch.  Nothing, and his friend reached into the sky again and again.
“I don’t get it,” his friend said.
A moment later, his friend disintegrated along with the tower.  The sky darkened, and the wind picked up.  Jason looked down, and all he saw was white.  No buildings.  No people.  Nothing, but his tower.
“Hello?”  Jason listened to his voice echo around him.  “Hello?”  The wind died down, and the sky returned to its blue color.  But everything else except for him and his tower was gone.  “Hello,” Jason screamed.
“Hello,” echoed back.
Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
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More from Melissa R. Mendelson:

nmkmmName’s Keeper

I got a one-way ticket out of hell. All I need to do is drive across country with a body in the trunk and run miscellaneous errands, but a lot of those errands come with a heavy price. And if I lose the body in the trunk, then I have to go back, and I’ll be damned if I return down there. I will fight to stay here, even if there is no rest for those wicked.

Available on Amazon!

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Kathleen McCluskey @KathleenMcClus4 @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on May 23, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

04_MAY_LOHGreater Grains of Atlanta
by Kathleen McCluskey

Marie was jolted awake, she looked around and realized she was the only one left at Greater Grains of Atlanta. She dozed off doing the year end reports, and now the place was deserted. The constant hum of the grain machines had ceased for the day; she could distinctly hear the earth sound of the small river that ran through the mill. The security lights cast a smooth orange glow onto the equipment giving them an archaic ambience.
The catwalk she had to traverse to get to the stairs and her car creaked and moaned under her feet. Walking into the darkness she stopped as she thought she heard the crack of a whip. She leaned over the railing and squinted her eyes to see if anything was amiss. Not seeing anything she continued to walk, this time faster. She again stopped as she could feel somebody breathing down her neck. She spun around. Standing before her was a very angry apparition holding a whip. He reached out and grabbed her by the throat. She tried to scream but her voice would not come. “I am the task master and you are not where you belong, slave.” He threw her off the cat walk and onto the hard concrete below. He landed beside her, whip raised above his head, “You will work until I tell you to stop. This plantation has no room for laziness. You will pay.” He began to whip Marie.
In the morning when the foreman walked into the building he spotted Marie. She was curled in a bloody ball. He could see long gaping wounds on her back; the material of her dress was shredded. The gory, bloodstained gashes had dried the material onto her skin. He had to hold back tears as he shook his head. He remembered the legends of the old mill and the property it sat on. He recalled the stories his grandfather had told him about his ancestry and his great grandfather’s role as a task master. Above him on the catwalk his forefather smiled.
Fiction © Copyright Kathleen McCluskey
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
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More from Kathleen McCluskey:

The Long Fall: Book 1: The Inception of Horror

Lucifer always cunning and intelligent challenges father to a battle of wits. Being the angel of light he casts a judgemental eye upon mankind. He begins a war with his fellow archangels and God. Michael, along with his siblings defend their home and mankind from their deranged brother. Broad swords and hand to hand combat drench heaven in blood. The four apocalyptic steeds are released, each having their own destructive power. Betrayal and lust are at biblical levels. Understand the very creation of evil and the consequenses that transpire in the first of THE LONG FALL series.

Available on Amazon!

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

Posted on May 23, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

03_MAY_LOHMagic Man
by Elaine Pascale

Robby whisper-announced the pills as he crushed them. “Midol, courtesy of my sister’s medicine cabinet…and some of this stuff she takes for palpitations…some of this other shit…and ‘not for the faint of heart’.” He held up a tinted bottle of cough syrup.
“Shit knocked me out for days when I took it,” Justin muttered as if his heart was no longer in it.
Robby put the concoction in a glass and added soda, juice, and vodka as if he were a bartender at heart.
“Can’t believe that doofus walked the tunnel to get here. With it strapped right on his back.” Justin rolled his eyes. “As my southern grandma would say, ‘bless his heart’.”
Robby feigned incredulity. “He might have gotten robbed!” 
“Or nabbed by that killer that’s been cracking people open.”
“Yeah, the heartbreak kid…”
Changing the subject back, Justin asked wistfully, “Can you imagine how it sounds?”  
“You need to harden your heart. We got a buyer, I confirmed the money is there, that is all I care about.” He thumped his chest for emphasis. 
#
Robby, his heart knocking, walked into the other room, and handed the young man the drink. 
“So, the gig you wanted to talk about—” the man said.
“We can discuss that in a moment. Sit back, I will play some beats for you.”
Justin couldn’t help himself. “Where did you get that ‘burst’ anyway?”
The man nodded to the guitar, still in its case and leaning against the wall. “My grandad. He was a musician, too…kind of famous but more for being a heartthrob.”
“Cool,” they said in unison.
“I was nervous about coming here, but you know, you gotta listen to your heart.” The man lifted his glass and took a drink. This was followed with him wheezing and clutching at his chest and throat, which was followed by him falling to the floor.
“It was supposed to just knock him out.” Justin’s heart was in his mouth.
Robby felt for a pulse. “Jesus, he has one of those bracelets…heart condition.”
“We are fucked,” Justin gasped, sick at heart. 
Robby, with a sinking heart, rushed to the guitar. “We gotta get this out along with him. No one can know he was here.”
Justin couldn’t help himself. “Can we just look at it? It’s my heart’s desire to see one.”
Robby sighed and unzipped the guitar case.
Their hearts stopped, metaphorically, at the sight of the classic guitar. It was nestled in its case, surrounded by literal human hearts.
Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image courtesy of Rie Sheridan Rose

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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 A.F. Stewart @scribe77 @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on May 22, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

02_MAY_LOHResidue
by A.F. Stewart

In the twilight we hear them, the everlasting voices. The resonance breaks our harmony of being, disturbing small fragmented vestiges of what we were. We tried to ignore them at first, but their presence would pull at us.
We cannot remember why, though perhaps we should.
Sometimes, we can see them. Their silhouettes shift around the twisted spires, the relics of rusted metal we no longer understand. We instinctively know what they are: dead shadows caught between dimensions.
Possibly when the world shifted, they were left behind.
So we gather In the fading sunlight to listen to their forever screams. Some believe we knew their names once, but their identity has vanished with our irretrievable past. Were they part of that life before? We know some did not transition, some were a sacrifice to the machine. We do not remember why, or who, only that we live on. Not as we were, not with blood and bone, or memory long gone, but only thought.
Perhaps that is what they are. Our lost thoughts.
Yet we still watch them. Honour them, these shadows. Trapped in one moment we can no longer comprehend. They scream, but we do not know why. They cry, but we cannot fathom the tears. Once, we were like them. Once, I think, we may have loved them. Now we pity them.
These poor forgotten phantoms snared between our life and their death.
Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
 

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More from A.F. Stewart:

vn

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!

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The Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Naching T. Kassa @NachingKassa @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on May 22, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

01_MAY_LOH

Venice is for Lovers
by Naching T. Kassa

Venice is for lovers. 
What could be more romantic than a gondola ride? The amber lanterns of the gondolas are reflected in the waters of the canal as we ride. The dark sky, awash with stars, above us. I smile at Rudy. He’d insisted on acting as my gondolier this time and he pushes our gondola on like a pro. My heart swells with love for him, just before it plops out of my chest.
Rudy and I have been together for three years, ever since I took that tumble off the top of the Empire State Building and landed at his feet. When I looked up from the pavement and into his handsome and terrified face, it was love at first sight. After they shoved me into that drawer at the morgue, I knew I had to see him again.
He screamed when I entered his apartment. I didn’t look my best, of course, and a walking corpse doesn’t tend to inspire romantic feelings. But I hung in there. I still am.
Rudy didn’t appreciate me at first. When I followed him to work, he threw me under the subway train. Luckily, I came out no worse for wear. I went home and waited for him. We had a good long talk after that one and he agreed to take me on a picnic the next day.
We drove way out into the country, and he took me to the cemetery where his grandmother rested. It was a lovely grave, well-kept, and over-looking a beautiful little town. Rudy hit me in the head with a shovel and buried me next to his grandmother. It was the most romantic thing he’d ever done. 
He was quite surprised when he found me in his apartment the next week. We had a lovely conversation after he quit screaming. 
A few weeks later, Rudy suggested we go to Venice. He said it was a place for lovers. I immediately agreed.
And now, here we are. It’s too bad my nose doesn’t work anymore. I’d love to smell these canals.
Rudy has a surprise for me and just asked me to shut my eyes (This isn’t an easy thing to do. I lost my left eyelid ages ago.) and he’s tied something to my ankles. Oh! He just lifted me into his arms. Crap! My right arm fell off. Talk about embarrassing.
I can’t take the suspense and I’ve opened my eyes. Huh! He’s tied several weights to a chain around my ankles. That’s kind of strange. I wonder if he knows the chain is tangled around his feet.
Oh! He just tossed me in the water! It’s so warm against my cold skin. I didn’t know we were going swimming. With only one arm, I can’t swim very well. But neither can Rudy! Why, he’s sinking with me! No matter how he claws at the water, he can’t seem to surface.
I think I’m going to cry. He’s given his life to be with me.
I guess Venice really is for lovers.
Fiction © Copyright Naching T. Kassa
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
 

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More from Naching T. Kassa:

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Arterial Bloom

Lush. Brutal.

Beautiful. Visceral.

Crystal Lake Publishing proudly presents Arterial Bloom, an artful juxtaposition of the magnificence and macabre that exist within mankind. Each tale in this collection is resplendent with beauty, teeth, and heart.

Edited by the Bram Stoker Award-winning writer Mercedes M. Yardley, Arterial Bloom is a literary experience featuring sixteen stories from some of the most compelling dark authors writing today.

With a foreword by HWA Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient Linda D. Addison, you are invited to step inside and let the grim flowers wind themselves comfortably around your bones.

Available on Amazon!

 

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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 Rie Sheridan Rose @RieSheridanRose @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on May 21, 2021 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

04_MAY_LOHSafe House
by Rie Sheridan Rose

Sarah looked around the huge empty room, her knapsack clutched tightly to her chest. The little canvas bag contained everything she possessed in the world.
“What is this place?” she whispered, afraid to disturb the silence that lay like a heavy blanket over the room.
“It’s a safe place, and that’s all that really matters. No one will find you here,” her guide replied, thrusting a bag and a gallon jug at her. “Here’s some food and water for the week. Make it count. I won’t be back until next Friday.”
With that, he turned on his heel and left. Sarah heard the key turn in the lock outside. They might say it was safe, but it seemed it was a prison to her.
She set her things on the floor and moved to explore the room. There was nothing much here—a stack of heavy sacks she could use to make a pallet, she supposed; another stack of thin sheeting; a basin that she would move as far away from the bed as possible and use for a toilet…she felt her face heat even though she was alone. Other than some miscellaneous equipment that she couldn’t decipher, that was it. There was nothing to make her feel at home, or comfort her, or in any way make it less of a prison.
Moving things around the way she wanted to see them gave her a tiny sense of agency, but it wasn’t enough to lift her spirits. She went to the only window in the room and hiked herself up on the windowsill to look out. 
Outside, the world was green and beautiful. Inside, everything was brown and dreary. The window was barred. 
Safe house indeed!
She could feel the rage beginning to boil inside her, and this time she didn’t fight to keep it down. She let it fill her, feeling the tingle in her fingertips that said the magic was rising. 
All her life she had resisted its call. She had damped it down any time it started to manifest. Even so, she had been consigned to this cold, drear room because she had slipped and set the church on fire.
She had been locked away to save her from the angry townsfolk. Well, she didn’t care what became of her anymore. This place was worse than anything they might do to her.
Sparks began to flash between her fingertips. Sarah laughed. For the first time, she rejoiced to see the magic. Flinging her arms wide, she let the fire free.
Withing moments, the room was ablaze. She scooped up her knapsack and walked to the door. It would burn away soon enough, and she would be free.
Maybe she’d look for her own safe house…
Fiction © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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519RiHK+1wL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_

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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