Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Kim Richards @Kim_Richards @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on March 1, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

01_IMG_FEBTime Stand Still
by Kim Richards

Time Stand Still by Rush played in Daiya’s mind. It was an endless loop of words and guitar sounds with drumbeats which matched her heartbeat. She had let her skin get too thin but not in the proverbial way of the song.
Literally, she spent too much time outside of her hourglass. Now a light wind picked up granules of her skin and whisked them away.  She knew it was time to return and still hesitated. She liked it here—beneath the bright full moon on a warm spring night. It would cost her to tarry but sometimes moments of time which cannot be recaptured are worth the price. She stared up at the starry sky and walked beneath the outstretched tree branches. She listened to the cicadas thrumming and hummed along with them.
She carried her hourglass in one hand. It was carved of wood when the world was new and the glass blown by the fiery breath of God. It’s sand was her birthplace and where she would go to renew herself. The breeze swirled around her, taking threads of her pink dress with it.
Daiya  never saw him coming. One moment she strolled across soft grass and the next she lay face down in it. Her hourglass flew from her grasp.
She rolled onto her back and saw the man who slammed her to the ground. He stood with his long legs in a wide stance and his fists on his hips. His tattered shoes and jeans had seen better days. She looked up beyond his dirty T-shirt and into his face. Dark eyes glittered as his mouth twisted in a cruel grin.
She held up one hand as if to ward him off. “Please don’t hurt me.”
He laughed and then said, “I won’t if you’ll give me what I want.”
Trembling, she asked, “What do you want?”
“A little of your time.”
“M…my hourglass. I need my hourglass first.”
He looked around for it and, upon locating it, kicked it across the grass in her direction.
As her fingers closed around it, the upper half of the glass glowed with a silvery light.  It brightened when she lifted the glass to eye level.
“What kind of time are you looking for?” she asked him. Before he could answer, she added, “You didn’t have to jump me. You could’ve just asked and I’d give you my time.”
“I couldn’t risk you running away.”
“Well, I’m not running.”
“I just need a few days…for my dad.”
Daiya nodded. “So, there is a cost. I can give your dad a few days but must take them away from you.”
“Kinda figured as much.”
She caressed the hourglass base with her fingertips. “Is he far?”
“Just the far side of town. I can take you.”
“Yes you must take me. I need to refresh myself inside my hourglass. I can do that while you carry us to him.”
“Okay.”
She handed him the hourglass. Then she cupped the upper glass portion in her hands and allowed herself to dissolve into it.
As he walked with the hourglass in hand, he heard her humming from inside the sand.  It was a familiar Rush song.
Fiction © Copyright Kim Richards
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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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 Christina Sng @ChristinaSng @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 29, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


03_IMG_FEBTree Mother
by Christina Sng

Here I sit,
Tree branches in my hair.
Yes, they’ve grown there,
Through my scalp
From my brain,
Stretching with a creak
As they reach their peak.
Sunlight only does so much.
I close my eyes as I focus,
Breathing deeply,
Touching my hands to the ground,
Feeling a rumble in my skull,
Pressing hard
Until the ground shakes,
Turning into an earthquake.
I aim the jagged crack
All the way to your house,
Right through the center,
A cut through its heart.
And now I stand up,
Walking to find you.
The branches on my head
Twist and creak,
Waiting in anticipation
For an infusion of blood.
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, Women in Horror Month, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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

Posted on February 28, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

02_IMG_FEB_

Storm of Night
by Naching T. Kassa

Nalin Kratides ran through the storm.
Above her, lightning flashed through roiling clouds and thunder rumbled. Harsh wind whipped at her clothes and hair. She clutched at the arm of the man who led her down the path toward the river. The waterfall before them roared.
“I want to go back,” Nalin said, but the words were not her own. 
The man didn’t answer. Perhaps, he hadn’t heard. He pushed on through the undergrowth, pulling her down to the river’s edge. Lightning strobed through the black sky. It shimmered in the fastmoving water and gleamed in his eyes. Thunder boomed above. 
“Eddie, I don’t like this,” Nalin shouted. “I want to go back to the car.”
Eddie turned to her. Another flash revealed his thin face. Wide eyes gazed and he grinned. She released his arm, but before she could pull away, he grasped hold of her wrist.
“Can you see me?” he cried.
“Oh, Eddie, please. Not again.”
“Answer me.”
“I see you.”
“Are you looking at me right now?”
“Yes!”
“You’re watching me. You’re always watching me.”
Though she didn’t want to, Nalin glanced up at the sky. 
“Eddie, we can’t stay out here. It’s dangerous and you’re sick.”
“I see you in there. I can see you behind her eyes. I know who you are.”
“Of course, you do. It’s me. It’s Darla.” 
He shook his head. “No. You’re Nalin. Nalin Kratides. You’ve taken my woman for the last time. I’m going to cut you out.
Pain suddenly bloomed in her abdomen. She tried to push away, tried to run, but her strength deserted her. She fell backward.
Gravity seemed to relinquish it’s hold on her, for she did not simply plummet to the ground. Instead, she moved in slow motion, floating above the earth. She drifted higher, above the waterfall, above the tops of lifeless trees and their skeletal branches. As her body rose into the sky, the lightning took on a strange emerald hue. A small ball of light erupted from her chest, and though she tried to hold it back with her right hand, it escaped her and joined the clouds. 
A tunnel appeared before her. A man waited at the end, standing near a severed head which rested on an examination table. He looked up into Nalin’s face.
“He’s here, John!” she cried. “I can get him!”
Detective John Warren rushed forward into the mouth of the tunnel. 
“Nalin, it’s too dangerous.”
She turned and peered down. The storm clouds parted, revealing the figure standing on the riverbank, his eyes focused on the ground.
Before he could look up, she dropped down to him and grasped hold of his hair. Eddie struggled as she tried to pull him upward into the sky. She kicked against the air but couldn’t lift him. He grabbed her wrists.
“I have you!” he cackled. “You won’t watch me with their dead eyes anymore!” 
Eddie dragged her down to earth. She lost her grip and he flipped her on to her back. The air rushed from her lungs.
A blade glittered in his hand.
The tunnel materialized behind Eddie and John stood within it. He surged toward them, but the distance was too great. He would never make it to her in time. 
Eddie towered above her. As he took a step, she lashed out with her foot and connected. He doubled over and stumbled backward. Pain and hatred twisted his face. He raised the knife.
Before he could rush to Nalin and plunge the blade into her chest, a ball of light streaked by them and crashed into the mud on the riverbank. Something rose from the muck and shivered to life, its movements awkward and stilted. Pale arms reached for Eddie. The figure shambled forward. 
Eddie shrieked as the headless form advanced. His knife came down, piercing the feminine shoulder. The blade snapped off in it, but no blood coursed from the wound.
Pale hands seized Eddie’s throat. He clutched at them, eyes bulging.
“At last,” the head called from the end of the tunnel.
“You can’t kill him!” Nalin cried. “There are others. He knows where they are.”
“Oh, I’m not going to kill him,” the head replied, as the hands tightened their grip. “You can have him—after he calls me by my real name. I’ll give him three chances. If he gets the last guess wrong—well—I’ll bite his nose off.”
Fiction © Copyright Naching T. Kassa
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
 

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More from Naching T. Kassa:

image (10)Kill Switch

As technology takes over more of our lives, what will it mean to be human, and will we fear what we’ve created? What horrors will our technological hubris bring us in the future? Join us as we walk the line between progressive convenience and the nightmares these advancements can breed. From faulty medical nanos and AI gone berserk to ghost-attracting audio-tech and one very ambitious Mow-Bot, we bring you tech horror that will keep you up at night. Will you reach the Kill Switch in time? Edited by Dan Shaurette and Emerian Rich, with authors Chantal Boudreau, Garth von Buchholz, Bill Davidson, Jerry J. Davis, Dana Hammer, Laurel Anne Hill, Naching T. Kassa, Tim O’Neal, H.E. Roulo, Garrett Rowlan, Phillip T. Stephens, and Daphne Strasert.

Available on Amazon!

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

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

Posted on February 28, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

01_IMG_FEB

I Am
by Mary Ann Peden-Coviello

It was their daily routine, and Sally-Anne looked forward to it.
 Every. Single. Day. 
“Who’s Daddy’s Best Girl?” His voice would boom out as soon as he stepped through the doorway, and his arms would open wide. 
“I am! I am!” And she’d leap into those strong, safe Daddy-arms. 
Every. Single. Day.
As she grew older, her daddy grew feebler. He couldn’t catch her anymore. Sally-Anne turned to other authorities, to other powers. 
Darker powers.
* * * *
Tonight, under the full moon, clad in virginal white, she waits.  She gazes deeply into the hourglass, the vessel in which she’s placed the souls she’s collected. She listens to them as they call, wail, beg for release. Only one of the captured souls pulls at what’s left of her heart. She can still hear him calling her “Daddy’s Best Girl.”
But now, in the far distance, she hears another Voice. Deeper. Rumbling like thunder. Shivering her very marrow. 
“Who’s Daddy’s Very Worst Girl?”
She turns her face to the night sky. 
“I am. I am.”
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 , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Melissa R. Mendelson @melissmendelson @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 27, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

04_IMG_FEB

Still of Winter
by Melissa R. Mendelson

“Thank you for picking me up.  It’s freezing outside.”  The middle-aged woman did not respond but gave a short nod.  “I should have checked the battery, but I didn’t.”  Again, no response.  “Interesting necklace,” and I reached for the weirdly shaped necklace dangling from the rearview mirror.
“Don’t touch,” and the tone of her voice made my hand snap back.
“I’m sorry.”  I blew into my hands, trying to warm them up.  “You driving into town?”
“Yes,” she replied, and her voice sounded different.  She glanced at me and pressed her lips together.  “I am,” and she continued to drive.
“Well, again, thank you for picking me up.”  I got the sense that she was in no mood for conversation, but the car was cold and quiet.  Even the radio couldn’t break the uncomfortable silence.  “It’s coming down pretty good.”
“It’s February,” she replied.
I sat back in my seat, watching the snow fall.  I blew into my hands again.  My fingers twitched.  My feet were numb.  If I wanted to run, I wouldn’t get too far, but why would I think that?  She seemed harmless enough, focused on the road, and I shouldn’t have been out in this weather.  But I was.  My car was left dead on the side of the road.
I looked out the passenger-side window.  I saw a girl dancing in the snow.  Must be my imagination, but she danced as we drove, never disappearing from my sight.  She looked at me, and an ice pick plunged through my heart.  She opened her mouth to say something, but she didn’t have any teeth.  She pointed at the necklace, and the woman beside me snapped her fingers.  The girl burst into flames.  She barely made a sound as she burned, but she still pointed at the necklace.
“Damn it,” she hissed as a deer dove out in front of the car.
I don’t know why I did it, but I grabbed the necklace.  I pulled it from the rearview mirror and jumped out of the car.  I ran as fast as I could away from that woman, clutching the necklace in my hand.  The necklace was ice cold and felt familiar.  I looked down at it and realized that it was made from teeth, and I thought of that girl.  I thought of how she burned, and I reached into my pocket, pulling out a lighter.  I set the necklace on fire and dropped it into the snow.
As the necklace came apart, burning a hot white, I felt something on my cheek.  I thought it was snow, and I wiped it away.  My hand was red, and something ran down my chin.  My mouth felt hot.  I exhaled steam out into the air, chased by a red river, and I reached into my mouth.  My teeth were melting, and my fingers met vacant spaces.  I spun around, and the middle-aged woman was behind me, laughing.  She had no teeth.  The smell of death poured out of her hideous cavern and over me, and I fell to my knees.  I watched her pick up my teeth from the snow.
“I’ll have to start again,” she said.  “Maybe, I’ll make a bracelet this time.”
The woman turned away from me, and I tried to scream.  My mouth was sealed tight.  Snowflakes floated around me, making me dizzy with their patterns.  I felt myself moving, and I was.  I was dancing in the snow, in a dark, cold, cramped space, chasing after the car as she searched for her next prey.
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.

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

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Scarlett R. Algee @ScarlettRAlgee @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 27, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

03_IMG_FEBFlee the Sun
by Scarlett R. Algee

Daphne is damned, she thinks, but she has a lot of time to think now.
Of course Apollo had pursued her. She’d been beautiful once, or so she’d been told, tall and green-eyed and chestnut-haired: more than fit to win the admiration of any mortal, man or woman, so why not the sun god? Think of it, her father had said, think of the honor he would give you, would give me, in children and grandchildren. You would rival any queen on earth. You would rival every goddess.
But Daphne had never wanted to be a queen, or a goddess, or bear the weight of children of any stripe. She found peace in the forest, with its littered floor and stately walls; she found contentment in the sweet grasses of the meadow, the little murmurs of the creeks, the small stony paths the crept up the sides of the mountain. She was satisfied alone, and alone she had meant to stay.
But Apollo had had other ideas.
He had found her wandering at the meadow’s edge, and something in his smiling perfect beauty had struck her as cold and alien. Then he had reached out, asking her to walk with him, and like the dove fleeing before the eagle, she had moved to escape.
She should, she sometimes tells herself, have known better.
Daphne had barely turned when Apollo had grabbed her hair, dragging her back, turning her around. The press of his hand against her cheek had made her skin crawl and her stomach knot; the jostle of his lips against hers had brought bile into her throat. And she had told herself, on some level, that she should let it be; that he was a god and she merely a prize; that there were worse things, perhaps, than children and grandchildren.
And then she had bitten her tongue and spat the blood in his beautiful face and run.
The sweet grass had bent under her feet with every plunging step, butterflies and blossoms crushing. Her lungs had burned as though she inhaled the sun itself, and perhaps she did, because he was behind her, implacable, never less than a lunge and grab away, no matter how she pushed herself; and so Daphne had prayed, oh gods, make me a thing he cannot have.
And someone had listened, because the earth had seized her feet.
Daphne had hit the ground headlong, screaming as her face slammed into the dirt and her ankles cracked, but some force beyond herself had pushed her upright again. Her legs had tingled and itched and then gone numb, and a glance down had shown her the rough bark crawling up her body, fusing her limbs, stealing sensation. Her arms and fingers, shoved skyward, had burst out in leaves and branches, her hair creaking into stiff extensions from which small yellow-green flowers broke and drifted and wilted in the wrathful heat of Apollo’s sun.
He had looked, for a moment, astonished.
Now Daphne’s branches sway in the breeze; her trunk groans beneath the winds of the oncoming storm. Her roots delve deep into the earth and drink. Birds nestle in her hair and sing.
But she looks sunward, ever sunward, and sometimes she thinks Apollo has won her after all.
”
Fiction © Copyright Scarlett R. Algee
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from author Scarlett R. Algee:

The Lift: Nine Stories of Transformation, Volume One

The hall is dark and the overhead light flickers. Sounds echo, and there’s a creaking and clanging that gets louder as you stand in the semi-dark. The elevator opens and you’re offered a ride. Step inside and ride it to the story chosen for your transformation. Don’t be afraid, for Victoria, the mysterious girl who operates The Lift, waits to guide you. Set in the same world as the award nominated audio drama, The Lift’s first written anthology features nine all new stories by fan favorite writers and special bonus content by creators Daniel Foytik and Cynthia Lowman. The collection is brought to life with beautiful illustrations by Jeanette Andromeda for each story.

Available on Amazon!

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

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author A.F. Stewart @scribe77 @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 26, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

02_IMG_FEB_Time Machine
by A.F. Stewart

Her heart fluttered, adagio beats,
against the center of oblivion,
suspended in the flow of time.
The universe blinked along her skin
and stole her breath,
exchanging it for stardust and atoms
Words echoed across eons
thumping in her brain
like a knife drawing blood
Creation
Destruction
Paradox
Vibrational shifts shudder,
coursing through her bones
Lights, sirens, worlds colliding,
a galactic axis tilting
into the rivers of millennia
She spins, she pirouettes,
she races the cadence of history
through a vortex of infinite,
to awake where she began
When the whir of machines
unwound her existence
She stares in silent screams
past the chamber glass
watching reality peel into decay
As the lever is pulled
to start the cycle anew.
Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
 

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More from A.F. Stewart:

HellsEmpire_CoverHell’s Empire: Tales of the Incursion

A unique anthology of two thrones at war as the forces of Hell assault an unsuspecting Victorian Britain.The cry went out to theologians and engineers, to artificers and antiquarians, to every name which could be named. By telegraph where lines were still intact, and by volunteer riders where they were not; smuggled along the coast in fishing smacks, semaphored from hill-tops. It came without royal sanction, issued jointly by the Lords of the Admiralty and Marquess Lansdowne, the new Secretary of State for War:”In God’s name, help us. We are losing.”

Available on Amazon!

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Lori R. Lopez @LoriRLopez @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction #poem #poetry

Posted on February 26, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

01_IMG_FEBIf Stardrops Fell
by Lori R. Lopez

Beneath a Wolf Moon on a silver-laced night
when the fogs were dense roamed a girl in white.
Her eyes toward the clouds she flowed with the brush,
never snagged by a thorn, seldom caring to rush . . .
But if stardrops fell, the lass traced their descent
to the base of the heavens, her visage content.
And quick would she travel to pillage the shines
by filling an Hourglass for selfish designs.
All the luminous orbs gaily flickered on boughs
like a diamond-bush forest or candlelight vows. 
In her haste to collect them she grew less relaxed,
her dress a bit torn, her veneer showing cracks.
Movements more rigid, aggressively paced,
intent on the prizes, the girl swiftly raced.
Peasant villagers knew to stay in on such Eves,
yet none of them gathered what she had up her sleeves.
The female a phantom, the subject of tales;
her rambles were legend, unlike those travails.
In the story they knew, a balance must be kept
by avoiding her mention, even while they slept.
Her names were untold and should never be spoken —
for to breathe either one, a truce would be broken . . .
Harsh storms of agony, blood-rains of turmoil,
bleak worlds of dismay down from ether could boil . . .
A tranquil mood nixed, transformed into rage.
The tantrum of a child.  A virulent rampage.
Tease not a whisper.  Bite your tongue clean off!
In these times of cold gloom, risk nary a cough.
Any syllable might come too close in sound.
Every clue was lost, not a shred to be found.
No record remained of what shouldn’t be said.
The guardians of lore were long ago dead.
Still she wandered the hills sprouting plants of Bane,
black of fire and sun, gray as ghost terrain . . .
Remote as a desert of shy desolate dunes,
an oasis of tufts solely fit for near-loons . . .
Swept by a sea of writhing frosts and vapors,
like a widow’s veil wafting feathery capers.
She pranced through the froth in a garden of fleece,
attracted by winks on her bounding caprice . . .
Chasing sparkles and shimmers of Fire-Flies;
a loner out wading the mist with mooneyes . . .
Reaching the shrubs flecked by spectral glow,
pausing to admire them, poised on tiptoe.
Then picking and plucking as if handfuls of berries
to stuff in a jar, or capturing Fairies . . .
She robbed Constellations from a Map Of The Stars,
till the single bright point at night would be Mars.
“Now finally I can get some quality sleep!”
Curled up on the grass, she was slumbering deep.
But the rest of the planet would plunge in despair,
overrun Dusk to Dawn, gangs and mobs everywhere . . .
Bad elements and brutes, bands of villainous knaves;
the savage, the ghoulish, the rotters from graves . . .
The corrupt and immoral, the stonehearted cruel;
only the two-faced could otherwise rule . . .
For the balance of Light versus Dark is precise,
and stealing the sky’s twinkle wasn’t that nice.
Fiction © Copyright Lori R. Lopez
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Lori R. Lopez:

LoriRLopez_Darkverse Darkverse: The Shadow Hours

A rich gathering of poetry with a dismal twilight atmosphere, a brooding nature, an eerie tone . . . DARKVERSE: THE SHADOW HOURS encompasses such pieces written by Lori R. Lopez between 2009 and 2017, collected in three of her POETIC REFLECTIONS volumes along with humorous and serious verse. This ample compendium allows a more focused reading experience and mood — presenting poems that share speculative themes, flashes of horror, glimpses of madness.

Lori is the author of THE DARK MISTER SNARK, THE STRANGE TAIL OF ODDZILLA, LEERY LANE, MONSTROSITIES, AN ILL WIND BLOWS, and THE FAIRY FLY among other tales. She has been called a storyteller, whether composing verse or prose.

The aim of her Darkverse series is to offer a chilling trek through unlit stretches where all manner of creeps and kooks may lurk; where graveyards and bogs and full-moons abound. The pages of The Shadow Hours illuminate those morbid uncanny perils and dreads that inhabit drab corners, the known and unknown terrors of the night. Vivid and distinct, her voice echoes our worst fears then delves beyond, exposing hitherto unimaginable frights.

Prepare to confront a motley array of ghouls and menaces that might just move under your bed.

DARKVERSE: THE SHADOW HOURS is an Elgin Award Nominee and a 2018 Kindle Book Awards Poetry Finalist. Look for an Illustrated Print Edition with quirky art by the author.

Available on Amazon!

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

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

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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Frenemies
by Angela Yuriko Smith

She was nobody.
A shy, almost pretty girl—
unnoticeable
by choice, by design.
She wandered in the background
keeping her secrets.
The dark matter snagged
the torn places in her mind
guiding the right words
calling shadow, giving flame
and seeking revenge.
Accidents happen.
Move along, nothing to see
but a bit of ash
from a former friend
guilty of grade school gossip.
No more whispers here.
Are you nobody?
Like her, your nose in a book
your eyes on the page
mind in the story…
in a better place than here.
She thinks you’re alike.
Fiction © Copyright Angela Yuriko Smith
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Angela Yuriko Smith:

The Bitter Suites

Book a stay at the Bitter Suites, a hotel that specializes in renewable death experiences. Whether you schedule your demise as therapy, to bond with a loved one or for pure recreation, your death is sure to give you a new lease on life. Renewable death is always beneficial… at least to someone.

Available on Amazon!

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Please don’t forget to visit the other WiHM 11 projects taking place!

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

The Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Suzanne Madron @suzannemadron @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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At the Border of Night and Day
by Suzanne Madron
On the poetry of the evening breeze she came to me
Singing of the mornings yet to come
In the bleakest nights, she sang to me of stars I could not see
And daylights left undone
My Persephone, my dream, my light
She waited for me to rise, too long
The vines drew lines across her brow
The birds made nests of her hair
And stole her soul through song
In a dream, she waited there
Until she became as the trees
And still, I slept beneath the ground
With my heart hardened to the cold of stone
The caves became my gasping mouth, my screaming eyes, my silent ears
And the crawling darkness became my home
Fiction © Copyright Suzanne Madron
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

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More from Suzanne Madron:

For Sale or Rent

The house across the street seems to go on the market every few months, but this time nothing about the sale is normal, including the new owners. No sooner has the for sale sign come down and the neighborhood is thrown into a Lovecraftian nightmare and the only way to find out is to attend the house warming party.

 

Available on Amazon!

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Please don’t forget to visit the other WiHM 11 projects taking place!

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