Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi @ErinAlMehairi @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on December 26, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Insistent Reporter
by Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi

We drove up the rocky drive, the car vibrations chattering our teeth, and the gear shift sticking from so many twists and turns. I fidgeted with the corner of my sweater, feeling a fluttering in my stomach about the invite to the house on the hill. Ben drove as I gripped on to the passenger side car door with wide-eyed anticipation.
Gold-embossed, vintage card stock had showed up in our mailbox one day with a date, time, and location—a Christmas invite for cookies and tea. Leah + 1 at 4 p.m. on December 5. Ben and I had been trying to get a story on a local historic mansion for years, mostly about its architectural reconstruction, but my last-ditch attempt had been a pitch for a fluff piece about the extensive holiday decorations in which we’d heard the owner, Ms. Rebecca King, decked her halls.
The candles lit in each window (which was probably close to thirty of them) gave a warm yet eerie glow. It was dusk, and moonlight cast a strange hue, but the house itself stood with an ominous air ever since the contractors stripped off the old, fading color in preparation to paint this coming spring. The stone stairs led up to the ancient-looking red door, adorned with a bronze knocker shaped like a majestic reindeer and a pine-branch wreath wrapped in gold and red ribbon. We knocked; a rather plain-looking woman, gray hair in a bun and wearing a black dress and a white apron, answered the door.
“Welcome to Deer’s Manor,” she said. “Let me take your coat and show you into the front room. I’ll bring in the cookies and tea shortly. English Breakfast Tea, unless you prefer otherwise?”
“Oh, perfect,” I said, putting my hand up in the sign of a gentle ‘I’m fine’ gesture to indicate I preferred to keep on my sweater till I warmed up. As she took Ben’s coat, I stood with my mouth watering at the smell of spice, hoping that meant the cookies would be gingerbread.
We walked past the enormous tree in the foyer, decorated all gold stars and snowflakes, with twinkling white lights swirling around the glitter-laden branches. After my eyes took in all the ornaments, they danced around the room—to the fresh cut greens wrapped in lights winding up the grand staircase and emanating their earthy smell, and then, to the wooden reindeer posed under the tree with red bows around their necks.
After entering the room, we sat down on the two-seat antique sofa by the crackling fire, admiring the decorations on the fireplace mantle—statues of old-world Krampus, Kris Kringle, and witches in various costumes and formations, wooden animals of the forest converging around them. Another large tree, bedecked in blue and silver bulbs, stood in the corner illuminating the shadows and a portion of the floor to ceiling bookcases.
As we heard feet shuffle into the room, we turned in unison to greet a woman who appeared to be in her nineties, dressed in a long gown, shiny slippers, and with golden bangle bracelets filling both her arms. We stood and reached toward her with outstretched hands.
“Hello, it’s so nice to meet you,” she said while waving her hand, jewelry jingling, in a dismissive gesture at us to sit. “No need to stand up for me. It takes me a few minutes to get to my seat.” She chuckled, and leaning her cane against the end table, turned around and sank hard into the cushion of an armchair across from us.
“Your decorations are brilliant, Mrs. King,” Ben said, glancing around the room.
She smiled back as the maid brought in a tray with two teacups balancing on saucers and a china teapot with a holly and ivy handle. Cream and sugar service were also available, white and in the shape of deer and goat heads, with little silver spoons on the side for stirring.
“Are you anxious to see all our decorations too?” she said, glancing towards him. “I know men don’t always find the appreciation for beauty in decorating as most women do.”
“Oh, I try to see what I can as if through Leah’s eyes,” Ben said, looking to the side. “She’s best known for her historical and architectural pieces for our magazine History Around the World, but she’s also adored every Christmas season and history meshing with the beauty of tradition.”
His eyes started to water, and the old woman handed him a Kleenex from her box on the end table. “I know it must be hard this time of year especially,” she said. “She was persistent, but I ignored her requests for an article on my ancestral home for so long, because as you see there were things you wouldn’t understand. I finally gave in when it came to the article on my Christmas decorating, but it was too late.”
“I just hope that I can do the article justice in her name, Mrs. King,” he said. “It’s the least I can do for her, even if I don’t know as much about holiday lore and interior decorating as she did. I’m interested though, in what you mentioned about things we wouldn’t understand?”
He smoothed each pant leg down with his hand, a nervous habit he’d had since he was little. Mrs. King tilted her head to the side and stared into the fire.
“Let’s just say that the clichés of spooky, old mansions fronting a large forest filled with the supernatural are sometimes true,” she said finally. “I don’t think her strange death was any coincidence I’m afraid.”
“W-what? What do you mean? I know she shouldn’t have been sneaking around the woods, but she was only looking for a viewpoint to better see more of your home. It was an accident… a frightened deer running from hunters.”
“Yes, those antlers can be quite deadly,” she said, wringing her hands together, diamonds and rubies sparkling in the firelight on her fingers. “But it was no accident and for that I am truly sorry.” The aging lady’s eyes shifted toward the mantle, causing him to gaze toward where she was looking. He saw the wooden sculpture of a male deer, with giant antlers, standing next to an ominous black, goat-like figure dressed in woodsman attire.
His heart fell two beats slower. He gradually turned his head to look the old lady in the eye. “She shouldn’t have been snooping,” she told him, “but I do feel a slight sympathy toward you. It’s why I granted you the interview still. If only she’d have gotten the invitation a few weeks sooner. But even in death it appears she is still as insistent as she was in life.”
“She had great determination, yes, but I don’t know what you’re getting at exactly,” he said, his voice growing louder in anger and pain.
“Leah’s ghost is sitting right beside you,” she said. “Screaming in fact, in horror, realizing she’s dead.”
Fiction © Copyright Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi
Fiction Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi:

Breath. Breath. 

It’s the one-year anniversary of the publishing of my debut dark poetry and short story collection, Breathe. Breathe. Much of it tells my life’s pains and haunts and fears poured, sometimes savagely, onto the page. However, there is also legend, folklore, and fantasy as well. 

Breathe. Breathe. is a collection of dark poetry and short fiction exploring the surreal depths of humanity. It’s a representation of how life breaks us apart and words put us back together. Purged onto the pages, dark emotions flow, urging readers into murky seas and grim forests, to the fine line between breathing and death.In Act One, readers are presented with a serial killer in Victorian London, a lighthouse keeper with an eerie legacy, a murderous spouse that seems to have walked right out of a mystery novel, and a treacherous Japanese lady who wants to stay immortal. The heightened fears in the twilight of your minds will seep into the blackest of your nights, where you have to breathe in rhythm to stay alive.
In Act Two, the poetry turns more internal and pierces through the wall of denial and pain, bringing visceral emotions to the surface unleashing traumas such as domestic abuse, violence, and illness.
In the short stories, you’ll meet residents of Valhalla Lane whose lives are on a violent parallel track to collision, a man who is driven mad by the sound of a woodpecker, a teenage girl who wakes up on the beach and can’t find another soul in sight, a woman caught in a time shift pitting her against the Egyptian goddess Anuket, and a little girl whose whole world changes when her favorite dandelion yellow crayon is discontinued.
Amid these pages the haunting themes of oppression, isolation, revenge, and madness unfold through folklore, nightmares, and often times, raw, impulsive passion crafted to sear from the inside out.
With a touching foreword by the Bram Stoker nominated author Brian Kirk, Breathe. Breathe. will at times unsettle you, and at times embrace you. Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi, a veteran writer and editor of the written word, offers up a mixed set of pieces, identifying her as a strong, new voice in dark fiction that will tear the heart from your chest, all the while reminding you to breathe.

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 Angela Yuriko Smith @AngelaYSmith @Sotet_Angyal #LoH

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Wordplay
by Angela Yuriko Smith

“I shall kill you with a pen,” the small girl said. “I will pierce your soul and draw it up like ink into my quill. When you are a dry husk, I will spill what’s left of you across my page.”
The old woman chewed slowly at the long stem that poked from her lips, thinking. She scratched her temple, narrowed her eyes and blew an onion scented huff from her flared nostrils. Her eyes flew open with delight.
“A story! You are writing me into a story,” she said. “Very nice! Now my turn.” The old woman rubbed her dusty hands together, her eyes sparking. Her lips peeled back from her purple gums. Only two teeth clung there, her canines, black and cracked. She gave a wheezy chuckle and leaned forward.
“I shall trap you in a labyrinth with no walls and no borders. I shall catch you in a map that no man has charted. The path will be plain and you will be free to wander it, but the end your feet find will not be of earth but of iron and shadow.”
The old woman stopped talking and watched the girl’s reaction. She had turned a shade paler than the spring moon, all the blood running to fuel that little pattering heart. She could hear it, fluttering in the cage of bone. She could smell the sweet, acrid odor of fear as it tickled along the girl’s spine and made her hair twitch at the roots. She licked her lips.
The girl was terrified, but she had a strong heart. It would taste good with wild scallions, rosemary and mint. The water had been drawn from the well hours ago to fill the large, iron kettle that simmered inside the hut. The girl had a brave face. It would be lovely to wear it and refresh her own worn out smile.
“Well?” the old woman asked. “Do you know?”
“”Yes,” said the girl. “I will run through the woods but I will never find my way out. In the end, you will drop me into the large pot boiling inside your house and I will vanish into a stew and become your dinner.”
The old woman cackled with delight and clapped her hands.
“What a wonderful, quick mind! It will make a delightful pudding with coconut milk and bread crumbs. You are a sweet wonder, my child. I’m so happy you paid me a visit.”
“The forest belongs to you, so I can never escape it now that I’m caught. All paths will lead back to you and your pot. To run away is pointless, so I will just stay here and make my own point.” The girl sat in the dust, picked up a stick and began to scratch letters into the path.
The old woman didn’t know what to do. Usually her dinner ran itself ragged until it collapsed back at her house, ready to scoop up unresisting. She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking, and watched the girl. She thought and chewed so hard she drew her own blood and her rotted old tooth came free. There was a hiss of wind, like air escaping a withered balloon, and half the old woman’s vision went dark.
“Aack! What happened?” She clasped one hand over her blank eye and looked around in shock. The girl had stopped scratching in the dirt and was grinning at the old woman. She stepped aside so the woman could see what she had marked.
On the dirt, in block letters, the girl had scratched the words…
She thought and chewed so hard she drew her own blood and her rotted old tooth came free. All her power and life was caught in her two black teeth. With one gone, she was half destroyed.
The old witch couldn’t understand. Part of it was because trying to read block letters scratched on a sandy path with one eye isn’t easy. The other part was because she had never learned to read. She just blinked, unable to comprehend what magic this child could wield by scratching a stick in the dirt.
The girl turned back to her work and began scratching again. She wrote…
As the old woman stared at the girl, confused, her other tooth just fell out and she was all dead.
With another hissing whisper, the other tooth dropped out and the old woman collapsed backward on the path as dead as a frozen stone at the heart of winter.
The little girl approached the body carefully and poked it with her stick. When she was satisfied that the hag was really all gone she gave a deep sigh of relief. She held out her hands to see how badly they were shaking and then took stock of how lost she was, which was very on both accounts.
Once again she bent over the path and started carefully scratching words. This time she wrote…
Now that the old witch was dead, the forest was no longer evil and the paths became straight and easy. The girl walked down it safely all the way until she reached her home.
She stopped scratching and looked up. The forest was less dark and sinister. The twisting path that had brought her to this place had smoothed out like a well traveled road. Between the trees in the distance, the girl thought she could see her chimney. She placed her stick in her pocket and set off toward what she hoped was home. She didn’t stop until she reached the edge of the woods and she had no more excitement, which she appreciated. When she reached the clearing of her home she carefully stepped off the path, turned around and wrote two more words…
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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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Ashley Davis @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!



The Mirror
by Ashley Davis

In my dreams, the gray-haired woman of the wolves stands solid, staff in hand, and she talks to me. She tells me that colors are like stars—the ones you see from the inside will guide your way. Everyone can do it; they just don’t know it. The weight of existence is defined by what paths we choose, but they will choose us if we let them. There is no predestination—only what could be. She tells me she used to talk to the crows, too, but for her they were a woman named Virgie. For the first time I see her smile, and it’s soft and full of enveloping warmth. Gray hairs fly free of her bun as she shows me the wide covered porch on both stories of the long yellow house, railings painted white. It stands in the late midday sun among treeless wheat fields. Virgie would stand on the upper porch during storms and talk to the gray-haired woman through an old, old hand mirror that had more history than any of us. It’s gone now—erased. But in the dream it’s in my hands. She tells me to touch the metal of the dream-mirror, its silver finish glinting in my hands as the wind ruffles the lacy curtains around the old French doors. She says we can speak through glass and metal if we want to, and I just have to focus on the difference between reflection and shadow. Really any sacred object will do, but metals transmit the best. She chides me for gazing into the mirror like a crystal ball, seeking obvious answers. “We are not fortune-tellers,” she says. She tells me to close my eyes and feel the object. She says we are merely shadows on this rock, but the constellations that capture our souls are like quicksand, pulling our essence away from this sacred land that holds all the secrets we’ve been searching for in the faraway stars. Her hand lifts my face to meet her eyes and I open mine. We must run fast into the forests and fields and grab hold of the Earth that was promised to us by the sky long ago. I believe her. I close my eyes and try again, no longer flailing in directionless space but focused on the object in my hand. The silver is smooth, but worn with time. Its main face is an oval, backed by silver flowers and vines that wind their way around the frame and down the time-smoothed handle. This mirror has thorns, but they’re the kind you feel on the inside. I was looking in the wrong place, like she said; I don’t even need my eyes to see or my ears to hear the messages stored here. The back and handle of the mirror are the important parts, and I feel things when I run my fingers over the finely shaped petals and leaves. There’s a worn spot where the back meets the handle, and there’s something there. Darkness is rising. A glow in the forest carries the tools we need. A dark-haired woman—Virgie?—watches over us by walking on moonbeams and following fireflies. They seek us, like most light does. I see an image of a cathedral, dark inside, storm clouds just visible through the high, arched stained-glass windows. A flash of darkness, despair, fear. A woman’s hand, reaching out of rushing waters… And something deeper. More sinister. There was something important there, but it’s gone now. When I open my eyes, I’m alone on the porch, which is quickly fading as the wind blows stronger and stronger. The curtains fly, clouds of dust billow, and I can no longer see. Just when I think I’ll be pulled into it, I awaken on the floor, on a blanket. I reach into my bag. The mirror is there, as I knew it would be. It will serve a purpose here, and I’m the one meant to wield it.
Fiction © Copyright Ashley Davis
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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Poetry by Ashley Davis can be found featured in the fall 2017 issue of
The Horror Zine

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Sonora Taylor @sonorawrites @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on December 24, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

A Part of You
by Sonora Taylor

Travis and Tristan looked at their mother, who lay dead on the floor. They smiled at each other, each looking into a reflection of the other as they grinned at their twin.
“That was easy,” Travis said.
“Dad’ll be thrilled,” Tristan added. “He was right – the tea got her in just one sip.”
“Let’s go tell him. He’ll be proud of us for –”
Travis stopped and stared at Tristan. Tristan stood frozen except for the blood trickling from his eyes. They looked like single threads spooling from each iris. Tristan’s mouth fell open, and a waterfall of blood joined the streams from his eyes.
Travis began to scream, then felt a burst in his stomach. He gripped his sides, but instead of flesh, he grabbed bone. He looked down and saw two skeleton arms shoot from his stomach, casting aside his hands like flies.
Before he could scream again, another burst came from his throat. He felt a large, smooth orb move from his neck. A skull cast a glance in his direction, then turned and dove towards the blood that pooled from Tristan’s body. The hands cupped the blood and the skull began to sip. Skin and hair began to grow around the bones. Before Travis lost consciousness, he saw his mother’s chestnut hair curl over her reborn shoulders.
“You can’t kill me,” she said to the lifeless forms of her children. “You came from me, and I’m a part of you – one you’ll never be able to destroy.” She grabbed her mug of tea and walked out of the kitchen. “Now, let’s see where your father is.”
Fiction © Copyright Sonora Taylor
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

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More from Sonora Taylor:

WITHER and Other Stories

Should we or shouldn’t we? It’s a question many ask themselves each day. Should we or shouldn’t we wither in a wooded paradise instead of a broken city? Leave our home when the news warns us of what’s outside? Join in a circle of nighttime delights? Be with someone who awakens our sins?

“Wither and Other Stories” tells four tales of the choice to partake. In the end, the choice may not need to be made. For when we ask ourselves, “Should we or shouldn’t we,” the answer is always yes.

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 Tawny Kipphorn @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on December 24, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


House of Abraxas
by Tawny Kipphorn

A labyrinth of torture chambers lie within the cobweb festooned walls of Abraxas. Therein resides the beast known as the tempest. Its menacing maelstrom of malignant monstrosities are in relentless pursuit to enslave souls in its perpetual torment. It dwells within our minds, and how unfortunate am I to have been deemed the chosen one. For what egregious act have I committed that I am eternally bound to the demon specter. I stood toe to toe with the thing as pools of black spread across the whites of its eyes.
Serpents with scales of obsidian spilled forth from its fetid maw, and I felt an intense heat burning its way up my throat, silencing my desperate pleas. The growing intimacy with the vast darkness etched into my brain as the turning point of my existence. The serpents of the tempest led a path to my personal hell, my yellow-brick road paved in black. My eyes can only see within the shadows now, for the light has become my one true enemy. There is no escape from this, only to succumb to its will.
As the sun dies each day, and the full moon glows, I am reminded of my sinister bond. I am nothing more than a mouse at the mercy of my prey. A lowly acolyte eternally trapped within this house of hell, the House of Abraxas.
Fiction © Copyright Tawny Kipphorn
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Author Tawny Kipphorn:

A Shadow of Autumn

Fall—a season as beautiful as it is foreboding. A Shadow of Autumn takes you back to childhood nostalgia while peeling away the mask to reveal things that haunt your worst nightmares. Within these pages, you’ll find the usual denizens of the holiday—demons, witches, ghosts, and bloodsuckers—along with strange and unknown creatures lurking everywhere from innocuous cornfields and pumpkin patches to basement hatches and high school dances. These fourteen tales of fall magic and Halloween horrors will keep you looking over your shoulder long after the last light of October has waned. Don’t say we didn’t warn you…

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 Kathleen McCluskey @KathleenMcClus4 @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on December 23, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


The Beast
by Kathleen McCluskey

The Beast was ravenous. It stalked its prey with no mercy. It fed upon the unsuspecting children of the town. It had to ensure its own survival. It would wound and capture more prey to feast upon at its leisure.
Cages with straw floors lined the back of the Beast’s lair. In three of the five cages were children, two boys and a girl. The boys had been there for some time until the girl arrived. The boys were dirty and scrawny, they begged the girl to help them escape. She only stood at the back of her crate and hummed a soft song. She had been captured with her beloved teddy bear in tow. Her bear now hung out of her hand and swayed slowly back and forth to the rhythm of her songs. She finally stopped humming and looked at the boys, “This Beast has no idea what he is dealing with. I am not like other girls.” The boys only scoffed at her boast.
Days passed and the Beast finally took one of the boys out of his cage. The Beast’s talons dug into the boys arm as he shrieked in agony. The monstrosity only smiled and began to feed. The boy’s cries became softer and softer as the blood flowed out of him. The girl only stood and watched. The other boy fainted at the sight and sound of the butchery. She began to hum again. The Beast ran at the wrought iron gate of her cage. She didn’t flinch. She only looked at her teddy bear and rubbed the top of its ears. Confused the Beast opened the door. She was still unfazed and turned her back on the monster. The Beast lunged for her. She turned revealing a mouth filled with sharp teeth and a jaw that unhinged like a snake. She went after the Beast, throwing it to the floor. “You killed my baby step-brother, now you will pay.” In one giant bite the Beast was gone. She emerged into the sunlight of the forest and found her way home.
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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Posted in Authors, Dark Fiction, flash fiction, FREE, Horror, Ladies of Horror, Writing Project | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Tiffany Michelle Brown @TiffeBrown @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on December 23, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


Le Cauchemar Vivant
by Tiffany Michelle Brown

Every time Ines closed her eyes, she saw him, draped in robes the color of campfire smoke, wielding a sword that tapered then flared. Crows flew from his vestments every so often, as if his soul were composed of darkness and feathers. A wolf always lurked by his side, looking angry and famished, but not for want of food.
Her hands shook as Ines assembled her Moka pot. She desperately needed caffeine to shake away the cobwebs of sleep—and fear. The man in gray had commandeered her dreams the past six nights without fail, and it had been unsettling to say the least. Though her California kitchen was bright and sunny, it felt like he was still there, perhaps around the corner, watching her from beneath the hood of his cloak.
Ines shook her head. Arrete, she chided. Il n’est pas reel.
She needed something to do while her espresso percolated—something that would require concentration and banish the man from her thoughts.
Ines plucked a Granny Smith apple from her fridge along with the knife she always used to peel produce from a kitchen drawer. She rinsed the apple, then set to work removing its peel. Her practiced hands handled the knife with ease, the product of working as a sous chef in the little French restaurant down the street.
The work of peeling the apple was easy, calming, soothing…until Ines’s marble countertops and sleek silver appliances darkened, then vanished, and the cold set in.
She was in a forest clearing filled with billowing fog. Ines could smell the damp in the air, fetid and wild. The chill pressed against her, icy and unrelenting. Another aroma fed her senses, something feral, just over her shoulder.
Ines turned, and as she did, heavy fabric swished around her. A pair of yellow dog eyes met hers, then shifted to something on the forest floor in front of her. The wolf growled, and it sounded like the whole world was rattling.
Oui, mon chien de la nuit, Ines thought. C’est l’heure.
Before her, a human skull lay half-hidden among moldy, tattered leaves. And she knew it needed to be vanquished. There was something old and evil within the bone, something that would swallow her kind whole if she didn’t dispense of it.
Ines unsheathed her sword, positioned the blade over the skull, and struck down, cracking bone. The wolf howled. As its cry echoed through the wood, the landscape cracked and peeled, revealing the blinding light of a southern California morning.
A moment later, pain coursed through Ines, fresh and hot. Blood poured from her hand, which was splayed out on the marble countertop, impaled by her favorite peeling knife.
Beneath the sound of her desperate screaming, Ines thought she heard a man laughing.
Fiction © Copyright Tiffany Michelle Brown
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 Christina Sng @christinasng @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction #poetry

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


The Execution
by Christina Sng

The many-faced woman lies face down, her three heads on the execution block, ready to be decapitated for her crimes.

In the crowd, the men she stole stand together to watch, pleased to close this chapter, before leaving to win back their families who have moved themselves to the next town.

The scythe severs the many-faced woman’s heads from their stem. Each man clutches his neck, falling to the ground when she does.

How quickly they forget the tenets of the gods, for when two people bind themselves together, they become one in life and one in death till another claims them.

The men’s heads detach and roll, leaving streaks of blood on unplanned paths, their carcasses devoured by wolves by day’s end.

The many-faced woman reattaches her heads, smiles at the carnage, pats her belly, and makes her way to the next town.

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 Selah Janel @SelahJanel @Sotet_Angyal #LoH #fiction

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!


The House
by Selah Janel

The house didn’t match any other building in the neighborhood. It was the place everyone avoided, the rickety, condemned place of nightmares and whispers.
It was also the shortest way home from school.
Sarah always held her breath when she passed The House. Always. It had worked so far, so maybe…
She was three squares of sidewalk into its property when she heard the rumble. Just keep walking. Don’t stop and don’t breathe.
She tried. One square more. Two. And then she couldn’t. Her legs refused to move. She struggled, fought to slide her sneakered foot one space more. One more cracked, crumbling square and she’d be safe!
The House had other ideas. The demonic scream from it’s depths made her gasp, made her breathe.
Her breath made her fair game. The door flung wide and welcoming. The strange pull that rendered her unable to movie yanked her back to the door, screaming bloody murder, though no one was around to hear-
‘’Emmie, time for lunch!”
The little girl looked up from the dilapidated doll house, but didn’t move. She didn’t dare move until it was finished. Something crunched inside the doll house that was just as gothic and unnerving as her pretend game had made it. She tried not to look while The House was eating.
Her mother came to the door. ‘”Come on, Em, food’s getting cold! You can play pretend with your dolls later!’ From her angle, her mother couldn’t see the doll legs get sucked into the dollhouse door. It had bothered Emmie at first, but she quickly learned that it was worse if she didn’t feed what was inside. Besides, she liked creating stories, even if they bothered her parents sometimes.
When the house was quiet Emmie got to her feet after shutting the door. She never opened the house all the way anymore. “I think I lost Sarah.”
“What? Didn’t you just have her?”
Emmie glanced to The House. It was quiet, but it didn’t have to say anything. If she kept it fed, the things inside wouldn’t come out. It was worth a few dolls and a hamster here and there. “I haven’t seen her.” It wasn’t nice to lie, but The House wasn’t nice, either.
“Well, we’ll look for her later and then talk about it. Come on, time to eat!”
Emmie followed her mother to the kitchen, sparing The House one last warning look before she left the room to eat her own meal.
Somewhere, something skittered in the walls, some pest or another. The House shuddered and opened its door, ready for the next course.
Fiction © Copyright Selah Janel
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Author Selah Janel:

Mooner

Like many young men at the end of the 1800s, Bill signed on to work in a logging camp. The work is brutal, but it promised a fast paycheck with which he can start his life. Unfortunately, his role model is Big John. Not only is he the camp’s hero, but he’s known for spending his pay as fast as he makes it. On a cold Saturday night they enter Red’s Saloon to forget the work that takes the sweat and lives of so many men their age. Red may have plans for their whiskey money, but something else lurks in the shadows. It watches and badly wants a drink that has nothing to do with alcohol. Can Bill make it back out the shabby door, or does someone else have their own plans for his future?

Available on Amazon!

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

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

Posted on December 21, 2018 by Nina D'Arcangela

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Maiden in the Tower
by Ela Lourenco

Rapunzel, Rapunzel you let down your hair
And escaped your tower, the witch’s lair.
A dashing young Prince did woo you slow
‘Til love blossomed and trust did grow
He came to you on a mighty white steed
He promised to wed you by royal decree
Fine of figure, beauteous of face
A prince to save you from this place.
This mouldy, putrid stone jail with not even a stair
The walls began to shrink, desperation tainted the air
Little by little he gained your heart
‘Til you felt you could no longer be apart
Emboldened now by your love so pure
You agreed to accept his brave secour
Rapunzel, Rapunzel you let down your hair
The Prince helped you down without a stair
Strong arms placed you firmly on solid ground
The light in the forest dimmed, not a bird made sound
As you looked up hope turned to fear
Gone was the visage of your Prince so dear
Cutting deep into your soul, obsidian ruthless eyes
‘Tis the true tale of Rapunzel and her poor demise.
Fiction © Copyright Ela Lourenco
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from Ela Lourenco:

Essence

Katra is a Fae Hunter in a world once ravaged by a terrible war. Having lost all memory of her childhood and rightful identity, her duty is now to protect the tentative peace brokered by the varying races of the supernatural world. When an evil darkness begins to spread, draining young witches of their power, Katra must find a way back to her true past in order to save the future.

Enduring many trials as ever-increasing powers awaken within her, Katra must also struggle with the mixed emotions her new partner, Blade – a Black Dragon – is rousing within her. Together they must battle the shadows that plan to devour the world they know and prevent its decent into another thousand-year war.

Can Katra hold onto her strength as the truth of her very being begins to unravel? Can she bear the weight that ancient prophecy has placed on her young shoulders? Or is her destiny to regain her true self, only to lose the world she is sworn to protect?

Available on Amazon!

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