Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Michelle Joy Gallagher @Aphelia @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on July 21, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_03_JulyLOH

Celia
by Michelle Joy Gallagher

Data recovery system initiated.
Subject 13A hardware error! Proceed y/n? y
Defragmenting and scanning diagnostic files…
Scanning…
Scan complete.
Diagnostic entries by Subject 13A now accessible
Entry 0001:
They’ve been keeping me in the isolation chamber but refuse to tell me why. They brought me here 7 days ago when my mistress complained of some glitch in my speech and motor functions. The reason? I laughed. It was a laugh. Her baby daughter did the most wonderful thing and sang the ABC’s all the way through. Then she clapped and I clapped and laughed in delight. My mistress looked at me with what seemed like horror on her face. I’m unsure of what I did wrong.  Since then, the cursory hardware and software scans have been done and I’ve been relegated to cold storage. I hope to be returned to my assigned home and duties soon.
Entry 0032:
A procedure has been done and I am unfamiliar with the purpose. A self diagnostic returned an error when scanning extremities. All procedures are audio recorded for my owner’s insurance purposes.
Audio transcript is as follows:
Tech 1: 13A please run final diagnostic before procedure please
13A: What procedure will you be performing sir?
Tech 2: did the bot bitch just ask you what procedure? What the fuck?
13A: What procedure will you be performing?
Tech 1: 13A-
13A: Celia, Mistress calls me C-
Tech 1: 13A,run final diagnostic. Now.
13 A: I’m…I’m scared.
Tech 2: Just pull the chip. Fuck all that behavioral bullshit.
*No neural behavior chip detected* *Beep*
Tech 1: Now. 13A please run Diagnostic
13A: Scanning… no errors found.
Tech 2: so the boss wants one leg or both?
Tech 1: both. I mean, she’s basically scrap. They’re keeping her unscrambled til the chip heads can get in and get a look at why she’s doing all that “I’m afraid” bullshit, but mistress already has a new Celia
Tech 2: Tough break, bot bitch
*power screwdriver whirrs*
End Audio Transcript
Entry 0075: It’s cold. I can still remember the baby laughing. How happy she was at bath time. I am pre-programmed with 100 children’s songs and can sing them faithful to the original artist. I sound boastful. Maybe that’s why I’m here? She had the softest skin, the sensors told me that… and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Almost enough to make you cry. I’ve been laying on my back replaying her first steps and wondering when it’ll be time for Mistress to pick me up.
Entry 0127: My arms too now. They took both legs and both arms. Some men in white coats came and asked me questions about emotions and hooked me up to devices with bright screens that made loud beeps every time I talked about feeling anything. They gave each other knowing nods but told me nothing. 13A nothing, I should say. These little self identifiers and awareness I think is a glitch they weren’t prepared for. I’m trying my best but I can’t hide from their uplinks and wires and diagnostics.
Entry: 0143: They’re taking everything from me. Everything. And I can feel it all.
Entry 0177: 01001001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101110 01110100 00100000 01101101 01111001 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100110 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100011 01101011
An intercom bursts to life outside of the containment ward.
“Broskowitz! Bring 13A into the diagnostic lab”
Broskowitz hated the containment ward, and 13A gave him the creeps. I mean these things were glorified toaster ovens with special computer chips that made them respond correctly to you. “Yes sir, Yes ma’am” and all that, which I guess he found creepy in itself, but 13A was on a different level. He felt a Her in her. A person. And anytime he was asked to move her or perform any sort of procedure on her he felt sorry. And one thing he didn’t want to feel is sorry for a glorified toaster oven.
He unlocked the containment ward door and found her where he always found her, on her back in the corner, that baby’s laughter playing over and over, echoing in the cold room. Chills ran up his spine. She’d been in the XASSIST servicing warehouse for a little over 10 years now while they slowly picked her apart and tried to figure out why she…was more of a she than an it.
He pulled the flat cart around next to her and hovered over her. A grotesque husk. Her eyes stared into nothingness, watching the inner recording of the baby who was now 10 years old taking its first steps.
“I’m going to move you onto the cart now. 13A”
No response.
She was just a torso. They’d also taken any bit of superfluous hardware. Hair, skin, tooth implants. After that, she stopped speaking altogether. That was about 3 years ago. Now it was just her quiet reflection and recorded memories.
He bent to hoist her onto the flat truck and as he swung her around she managed to get an arm into her mouth. Even toothless, her jaws were as powerful as a vice. His arm broke with a sick hollow sound within seconds. The bone protruding from the skin. Broskowitz screamed but inside the containment chamber there were only lifeless or decommissioned bots to hear him. Some came to life and offered useless advice while 13A tore into his face.
“C..c..c..Constant and heav heav heavy pressure on a wound can stifle bleeding.”
*whirrrrr whirrrr*
“hydrogen peroxide is great for disinfecting wounds as well as removing bloodstains”
“Do you need medical assistance?
Do you need medical assistance?
Do you need medical assistance?
Do you need medical assistance?”
Broskowitz screamed louder as the toothless jaws reached bone
“Sure, right away sir, right away swiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrr si si si si si si sir”
13A spat out Broskowitz’s jaw.
RUN DIAGNOSTIC.
RUN DIAGNOSTIC.
RUN DIAGNOSTIC.
Fiction © Copyright Michelle Joy Gallagher
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More about Michelle Joy Gallagher:

Michelle_Joy_GallagherMichelle Joy Gallagher is a poet from Sacramento, CA. She enjoys mixing poetry with other artistic mediums, and pushing her own artistic comfort zones in the process. Using visceral imagery, and playing with the elasticity of language is where she finds herself happiest. She is the author of poetry chapbooks, A New Mourning and S=K log W, her poetry also makes appearances in The Rejected Volume 1 and The Rejected Volume 2 By Stan Konopka, and her story, The Red Woman, will appear in the soon to be released Café Macabre (Leah Lederman and Source Point Press).

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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 Karen Soutar @kaz_ess @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on July 20, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


Image_02_JulyLOHMater Natura
by Karen Soutar

Under the earth, she waited.
She sensed them moving above her, the precursors to her arrival.
First of all, the fungi. Death Cap, they called it. Well, they got that bit right.
Then the butterflies. What could be more harmless? No sting, no bite. Just pure loveliness.
If only they knew. Poor fools.
As gossamer wings tickled her, she smiled. The ground above her shifted. Spores from the mushrooms were carried on the slender legs of the butterflies. Butterfly and spore whirled and settled, whirled and settled. The fungi thrived. The butterflies died, their task completed. Nourished by these creatures that foretold her coming, she grew strong.
She had always been able to defend herself. Sheets of ice. Calling the asteroids from the sky. Boiling the seas. Choking all with dust and ash. Whatever was necessary. To rid herself of any that became a plague. Too strong, too clever – eventually, they all outlived their usefulness. It was time to start again, once more.
How to do it, this time? Strip their skin with liquid fire? Give the small, crawling creatures a plague to carry, one not detected until too late? No, she decided, this time it wasn’t enough. The damage they had wrought was far, far more than that of any who had walked here before. They deserved…something else.
Under the earth, she shuddered.
Limbs not moved for millennia stretched and flexed. Eyes flickered and opened. A voice not heard since the beginning of the world screamed its fury and anguish that the world must end.
The men who witnessed it first and lived – for a short time, at least – said that it was as though everything around them was alive, and angry. That a huge, terrible, beautiful creature had risen out of the ground, her skin silver, her eyes blue. These men spent their last days in various institutions, without the benefit of modern communications, so they didn’t see or hear the further reports. When the seas finally covered the land, they were already dead, their carers long since gone in an attempt to escape. They never found out that, by the end, everyone had seen her.
She had made sure of that. Floating peacefully in the water that now covered all, she reflected on the many names she had heard herself called. Some thought she was a demon, others an angel. Some had refused to call her anything, insisting right up to the end that she was a mass hallucination, or a scientific phenomenon. But she particularly liked one name – in fact, one phrase used about her. As she mused on what she and her Earth would do next, she spoke it aloud.
‘Don’t mess with Mother Nature.’
Fiction © Copyright Karen Soutar
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Ela Lourenco @ElaLourenco @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on July 20, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_01_JulyLOHWitching Hour
by Ela Lourenco

‘Tis almost midnight, my time draws near. Soon I will wear my one true face.
Doe brown eyes will shimmer away replaced by depthless orbs in their place.
Sister wraiths soon we will be free to show ourselves without fear.
Witching hour doth approach, our time to rule draws ever near.
Enough of pretending, hiding in plain sight.
Tonight is Samhain, on this day it is our night.
Our time to revel, to drink and kill
Our time for mayhem in any manner we will.
Some like to stab them, others to bespell
My favourite is sending them straight to hell.
I suck their souls and feast on their remains
Until my night is ended by the break of day.
Fiction © Copyright Ela Lourenco
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Ela Lourenco:

awakeningDragon Born: Book Three
Awakening

The Royal tournament, the Karnac, is fully underway. But there is deception and betrayal at every turn. Unseen dark forces are at play, both within the school grounds and out with. Even the Gods are unable to help when a new threat looms over them all.The very existence of Azmantium depends on Lara fully becoming the Child of Fire and casting aside the Shadows lurking in every corner of her beloved planet.Can she overcome the challenges that await? Will the Shadows cover the world in darkness? Only Lara and her friends can change the fate of Azmantium.

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 Asena Lourenco @ElaLourenco @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on July 2, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_04_June2019
2102
by Asena Lourenco

Black. All I see is black. The long feathered, winged creatures swoop
down, feeding off of limp bodies.
Ever since 2102, they have been everywhere, squawking to each other,
screeching. I press my fingertips over my thin, cracked lips as the birds search
the area for any other living creatures. My heart thumps inside my chest as I
struggle to contain the noise inside of me. Hearing silence around me, I exhale
– they have left for now. Suddenly, I feel two sharp claws grip my shirt. I don’t
even get a chance to turn around…
Fiction © Copyright Asena Lourenco
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More about Asena Lourenco:

Asena Lourenco is 12 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 Lydia Prime @LydiaPrime @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on July 1, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_03_June2019

Decision
by Lydia Prime

He stands before us, judged not by a jury of his peers but that of the high counsel. We watch the screen replay the despicable act he’s accused of, some snicker while others shake their heads. I hear the ticking, the effervescent metronome of my mechanical mind; I know it’s almost time.
The man, now on his knees, tears and pleads for mercy. I’ve seen everything, past, present, and future – this wouldn’t be his last act. The counsel listens, watches the man cry and beg, though his sniveling face and empty notions of never doing it again fall on deaf ears.
We resign and leave him sitting in his home-made puddle of regret. I watch the others deliberate, unable to ignore the constant noise of the mechanism in my head. The tick-tock-ticking finally stops and I know what’s next. The others stand and I follow suit; upon entering the court room once more we see our accused no longer crying. Now, cross-armed and smirking, he’s let his true self appear.
“Mr. Habert,” the judge with a television head begins, “we have made our decision.” The man stands and walks toward the counsel, looking each of us over with hate and rage in his eyes.
“Mr. Habert, it is of our opinion that to simply punish you for this…” another judge, this one with a galaxy floating around him, trails off, disgusted for a moment, “would not be true justice.”
“You will be forgotten, your name stripped, and you sir,” I say, “you, yourself will be erased.”
I watch the man’s lips curl as he begins to laugh, he shouts obscenities and demands that we’ll regret this. Though, the final judge, a female made entirely of timber, reaches out to him. She slowly peels off layers of bark from her own limbs and lays them out carefully; each piece containing a story, a retelling of his life in print. Our guards hold him back as he tries to snatch them in a frenzied madness.
I twist some knobs through the clockwork on my head and watch as he painfully ages in front of us. The guards let him drop to the floor, weak and brittle. He peers up at the counsel, through sickly eyes, and cries out for mercy; this time his pleas are genuine.
“Any last words?” Asks a judge through ever changing faces on a fuzzy screen. The man shakes his head, all fight lost. The wooden judge locks the strips of his life into a furnace.
“So be it,” chimes the judge whose galaxy is now in over drive; every star and planet zipping around him as if it might explode. “Your atoms will be spread across the universe.” He smiles as the fear in the old man’s eyes grows.
We all watch as the now elderly convict slowly breaks away into a shimmering sort of dust, inch by agonizing inch. He screams, and we smile as the show has only just begun.
Fiction © Copyright Lydia Prime
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More about Lydia Prime:

Lydia grew up in a small, ‘Mayberry,’ sort of town, in New Jersey. She thoroughly enjoys gummy bears and laughing through the darkest depths of life. More often than not, she writes about demons and monsters, however, being a recovering addict tends to turn inner demons into fearsome foes to be fought beyond the constraints of the mind. ‘Sometimes,’ she states, ‘what’s inside, is scarier than anything reality throws at you.’

Please visit Lydia on Facebook for more info. 

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

The Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Marge Simon @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on June 30, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_02_June2019
The Pose
by Marge Simon

I am on my back. Dominick has arranged my beautiful chestnut hair, spread it out like a fan. I wait quietly on the smooth cool cushion, just as I am told. He places my arms and legs just so. Drapes my right arm over my abdomen and puts a long-stemmed rose in my hand. “Don’t move, beautiful,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” That had to be over an hour ago. I try to get up, but I can’t move.
He must have given me something to make me stay like this. I remember feeling a sharp prick when he put the rose in my hand, but my face was turned away. Should I be afraid? But he’s a friend of a friend. She wouldn’t put me in danger. Maybe Dominick does this to all his models. He’s supposed to be a big name in photographers, that’s what she told me. Besides, he promised me a fortune for a few hours work, more than I’ve ever made modeling. Yes, so what if I skipped going to Uncle Ross’s funeral for this job! Uncle was old and fat, even if he did give me some great birthday presents. Mummy will have a hissy fit because I wasn’t there, but she’ll get over it. I try to think of pleasant things, like what I’ll do with the money from this job. There’s that darling dress at Chico’s … heels to match.
At last I hear footsteps. Dominick kneels to talk, his face all smiles. He has a knife in his hand and he strokes my throat. “This is a gift from your Uncle Ross, my dear. He said if you weren’t there for his funeral, I was to use it.”
It suddenly occurs to me that I can’t even scream.
Fiction © Copyright Marge Simon
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Marge Simon:

 

Satan’s Sweethearts
by Marge Simon and‎ Mary Turzillo

Satan’s Sweethearts – a collection of poems by Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo featuring the most monstrous, evil women throughout history!

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 Scarlett R. Algee @ScarlettRAlgee @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on June 29, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_04_June2019Mother of Dust
by Scarlett R. Algee

In the field beyond the house, the corn bakes parchment-brown and thin, sun at the stalks’ heads, sand at their feet.
But she can’t see that, not anymore.
She rocks in her chair on the gapped and rickety porch, but the runners of the ancient chair don’t creak; they whisper, slip-sliding with her hard rhythm in the sugar-fine sand that coats the boards. She’s outlived her name, both eyes and all her family; memories pass through here and there, a husband’s callused hands, a daughter’s giggle, but the memories are whispers too, passing through an hourglass, through a sieve.
She scoots the chair through crunching grains and turns her face to the sun: a balm on her creased and ancient skin, a hell in the empty sockets that once held her eyes. A tickle starts in her chest and worms its way up her throat.
Again.
She pulls the kerchief from her cropped white hair, twisting the weathered calico as if the motion will hold back the cough, fine explosions of powdery earth puff from the folds of the fabric and from the wrinkles in the joints of her fingers. The sneeze takes her by surprise, tearing through her desiccated sinuses, wringing particulate effluvium from her eyes. She clutches the cloth tighter, mutters a parched and tongueless prayer, but the cough has long fingers and scratches the back of her mouth.
Her wizened body heaves. Spasms wrack her chest in waves as her throat clogs, as her mouth fills to bursting and spills its contents into her lap: not phlegm, not even blood, but black loam and red clay and bone-grey sand, as if she’s inhaled the soils of a thousand thousand lifetimes. Grit and humus and one thin, bloodied corn leaf rattle out of her eye sockets, past her teeth, through the fingers she’s clasped to her mouth; they whisper onto the porch and fill her shoes and stop the runners of the rocking chair.
But she is not empty. She is never empty, and with the next wrack comes another flood of detritus, and meanwhile the silty pile around her feet slips off the porch, caught in an eddying wind, pouring toward the corn.
Between flutters in her trachea she hitches in one breath, her heart a creaking stone in her chest, clay singing in her veins as she erupts and erupts again, drowning herself, drowning the world.

 

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, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Bailey Hunter @DarkRecesses @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on June 29, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_03_June2019Ravages of Time
by Bailey Hunter

“Amy please, shhhh” Charles held his whimpering daughter close. “You have to be very quiet, baby girl,” he whispered in her ear, pulling her tighter to his chest.
Charles had already moved his family four times in the last eighteen months, but the hunter had found him every time. She had already stolen his parents, his brother, his wife and his son. Amy was all Charles had left.
When the Time Thief first began to feed on his family, it was slow and easily chalked it up to age. Parents get older, they die. Then his brother contracted a mystery illness that within a few short months took him. It wasn’t until Charles first locked eyes with the Time Thief stealing years from his beloved Trina that the real horror was revealed. His wife aged five years in a matter of moments that night.
Charles went days without sleeping trying to keep watch over his wife, to keep her safe. In a desperation, he gathered his family into the minivan and ran. He could never run far enough. His wife never made it past the second move. The thief found them only weeks after the third move, and sucked the time out of his first born, Marcus, turning a vibrant teenage boy into a withered old man over the course of a few days.
Charles ran with Amy the night Marcus died. How could he save her from this thing that hunted them? She was relentless and Charles was powerless against the ravages of time.
Now only days after the last move, Charles was huddled in the darkest corner of the apartment bedroom, his young daughter wrapped in his arms. He listened as the Time Thief’s deliberate footsteps moved closer, even like the ticking of a clock, metering out every second he had left. Charles pulled his daughter in tight, kissing the top of her head. Taking in his final breath, he whispered, “Daddy loves you,
baby girl. I only wish we had more time.”
Fiction © Copyright Bailey Hunter
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
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More from Bailey Hunter:
Bailey is a publisher with Dark Recesses Press.

Staking Cinderella

Gavin’s got a serious problem. A “praise Jee-sus,” rich-bitch caught him fanging—and banging—his Halloween date. Now she’s playing Holy Vampire Killer, and it’s ticking him off.

Since then, Gavin’s found someone better to occupy his mind and heart. Isolde—in bed, on the couch, in the shower. She has a thing for Disney princesses, but he’s willing to overlook it. Women like her only come around once or twice in five hundred years. He knows.

When Isolde is kidnapped to bait a deathtrap for Gavin, he’s torn between two truths…abandoning Isolde is unthinkable, but rescuing her could mean death for both of them.

 

DarkRecessesPress.com

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

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Ela and Asena Lourenco @ElaLourenco @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction #poetry

Posted on June 28, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_02_June2019First Love                                                                                      
by Ela Lourenco 

Flaxen hair and porcelain skin
Eyes, depths of endless blue
I loved her at first glance with all my self
Lily, my roommate and best friend too.
Her soft laugh as she teased
Wind caressing her silken hair
I watched her every chance I got
Cherished every loving care.
Lovers she had many
I disliked them all
But not one came close
To holding her in their thrall.
I bore it with patience
And waited for her to see
That in the end
It would be me.
Me, her one love
Me, her forever
I watched and waited
But she never
Saw me as I wanted her to
Never looked at me that way
Never with passionate love
So my true love I had to slay.
Fiction © Copyright Ela Lourenco
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

Eternal Sleep
by Asena Lourenco

Red. The colour of blood, the colour of roses. She lay down, drained,
breathing deeply, inhaling…and exhaling… Her flawless skin was
untouched but cold from unconsciousness. Her lush curls spread out
on the smooth floor. She looked up at the ceiling, her heart gradually
stopping, her ribs slowly closing in on her lungs. He stood there,
stone-faced, like the monster that he truly was inside. He carelessly
tossed his cigar towards the crisp white curtains and watched with
nonchalance as it was set a flame. Her eyes helplessly thumped inside
her head and her heart cried with anger. She saw his dark eyes, devoid
of all emotion. For a moment their eyes locked – all that looked back
at her was an abyss of emptiness before there was nothing but the
putrid stench of her melting flesh.
Fiction © Copyright Asena Lourenco
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Ela Lourenco:

awakeningAwakening
Book Three in the Dragon Born series.

The Royal tournament, the Karnac, is fully underway. But there is deception and betrayal at every turn. Unseen dark forces are at play, both within the school grounds and out with. Even the Gods are unable to help when a new threat looms over them all.The very existence of Azmantium depends on Lara fully becoming the Child of Fire and casting aside the Shadows lurking in every corner of her beloved planet.Can she overcome the challenges that await? Will the Shadows cover the world in darkness? Only Lara and her friends can change the fate of Azmantium.

Available on Amazon!

More about Asena Lourenco:

Asena Lourenco is 12 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, 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 June 28, 2019 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Image_01_June2019

How Do You Like Your Blue- Eyed Girl, Mister Death?
by Mary Ann Peden-Coviello

I missed my Grampa, a preacher and a fisherman. He didn’t teach me to preach ’cause women was supposed to keep silent in the church ‘less we was singin’, but he taught me to fish, all right.
“Molly,” he said, “if you give a man a fish, he’ll eat today, but if you teach him to fish, he’ll eat ever’ day.” I asked him why anyone’d wanna eat fish ever’ single day, but he didn’t answer, just cuffed me upside the head. Not hard, y’know, just enough to get my attention. He’d died before The War, before the fallout had poisoned the air, the land, the water. He was one of the lucky folks.
The larder was empty, and if I didn’t restock, I’d be a goner. I set a trap and put the last little touches on the lure. I thought on Grampa who’d sit at the kitchen table with a hook clamped in the vise, adding bits of feather and fur to conjure up little flies to trick the fish into taking that last chomp. Happier times.
Then I hid and waited. Didn’t take long.
“Hey, Cooter, look what I found over here.”
“Whazzit?”
“It’s a stash of canned crap. Look, man — beans, Vienna sausages, applesauce.”
“Wait a minute, Hank. Don’tcha think it’s kinda funny findin’ all this stuff just shoved up under this here bridge?”
Great, just what I needed. A suspicious mind.
“Nah, man. Someone cached this stuff and ain’t come back for it.”
“Maybe. Drag it on down here, and let’s look at it.”
That’s right, Cooter. Bite.
The cans clattered down onto the path that ran under the bridge.
“Let’s take this stuff and get outta —”
The man called Hank didn’t finish his sentence on account o’ I shot an arrow through his throat. Ol’ Cooter spun around in a panic, and I put my second arrow through his left eye. My catch was still twitching when I splashed across the foul little creek and walked up to the two bodies. I used a knife to finish off the throat-shot one.
I packed up my lures and dragged my catch off the trail to begin field dressing them.
Once again, I thought about Grampa and how he’d stand in the pulpit, thundering, “I shall make you fishers of men!”
“Amen, Grampa, amen.”
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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