The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Imprints of Time by A.F. Stewart
Which one to choose?
The box presented a Pandora’s choice of possibilities. Fading photographs, outdated snapshots of time, some scratched, some with crumpled edges, most black and white, others with snatches of colour. My fingers itched to hold them all.
Only one at a time. That’s the rule.
I winced. His voice always caused a sharp pain in my head. Rubbing my temples, I obeyed, and sorted through the pictures, deciding on one of a mother and child. An edge of the yellowed paper curled, but the washed-out sepia showcased a clear image; a smiling woman in a flower-print dress holding the hand of her chubby-cheeked boy.
Such a picture-perfect parent.
Grimacing, I nodded in agreement. “Why should they get happiness? I didn’t. No motherly, indulgent smiles for me. No happy family portraits captured on film.” All I received was the back of her hand and a scowl. “That’s the one. Target the boy.”
As you wish.
Intoning the spell, I groaned as the constant aching pressure in my head abated; swirls of charcoal smoke and the reek of sulphur flooded the room as the demonic presence inhabiting my body left, reforming beside me. He chuckled before fusing into the photograph and time itself. As I eagerly watched, the photograph altered, the little boy’s face morphing with a crooked, disturbing smile, staring at me with my demon’s eyes.
I whispered, “Kill the mother. Make her suffer. The same way we made mine suffer.”
Tragedy spares no one… and takes no prisoners. In the twilight shadows, secrets are revealed past the whispers of madness.
Wander into the realm of the old gods with Elenora, where humanity and marriage are a prison. Step through a looking glass of dark horrors with an Alice you never knew. Join with Zenna to seek the truth as her death by magic grows closer. Journey with Olivia as she crosses paths with a monster of the forest and runs for her life. Watch Isobel summon the faerie to solve her problem of an unwanted husband. Shiver as Doctor Killbride experiments with corpses to create life from death. All that and more await within the pages.
Ten stories. Ten women. Who will survive? Who will fall? And who will succumb to their inner evil? Find out in Visions and Nightmares.
Warning: This book contains disturbing scenes that may be upsetting to some readers.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Ancient Blessing by Christina Persaud
Autumn rain pelted the young boy who had just found his mother’s dead body in their backyard shed. From her cold lips trickled something sticky and blue. Oliver, who had just turned eight, knew better than to touch her, or it. From his own mouth came a loud whimper. His little chest thumped and threatened to burst. She appeared so alive, yet her once bright eyes had gone pale. A strange thing, like she’d been sucked right out of her body. Her pupils pointed at him, but her stare went right through – as if to say, See? I told you. Our blood runs blue.
Oliver ran from the raging storm and into the house seeking comfort and shouting for his nanna, but the old lady did not respond. Her purse was gone, meaning so was she. Tears spilled from his eyes, making a note on the fridge hard to read, yet he had to try.
Gone to get milk. Be back soon.
Oliver trembled as he stood in the kitchen, not sure what to do. His body screamed from the inside, and his young mind melted with rushing thoughts of panic and fear.
“Mama,” he whispered, as if someone could hear him. As if there was still time to save her.
“Your mama is dead.”
Oliver spun toward the voice, one which he did not recognize.
Crouching on the kitchen stove was a strange creature. Its body was that of a man, tall and slender, but its head was marred by a long beak and two black dots for eyes. It was bald and had no hair or feathers except on its folded wings, no indication of emotion, much less sympathetic feelings towards the child that shuddered in its daunting presence.
“No,” Oliver said in a weak voice. “She might still be breathing.”
The thing on the stove opened its beak, and from inside its mouth a worm of a tongue slithered and wiggled about. “You put your face next to hers, didn’t you? Did you feel her breath against your cheek? No. I thought not. I squeezed her lungs dry myself.”
Oliver screamed. He ran to his momma, as children in fear or in need of love always do.
Behind him, the winged thing gave chase. Oliver could hear it, sounding louder than any bird of this world. With the help of wings, its long legs moved faster than the young boy’s, and soon he was overtaken, just steps from his mother and the shed.
“She’s dead. She’s dead!” The beaked creature taunted. Reaching with its talons, it lifted its head high and was about to strike the child when a woman’s silhouette appeared.
“Nanna!” Oliver ran to hide in his grandmother’s skirt. The old woman glared at the creature. She held out a scroll and began to chant in a tongue Oliver had heard before, during the full moon ceremonies and at his own birth, which he vaguely remembered.
As Oliver’s grandmother spoke, the creature screamed, as if the words sliced into it like carving knives. It tore its own feathers with its mouth. The agony made it bleed from its ears. Unable to listen to the wisdom of the ancient blessing bestowed on the family of witches, the winged beast took off and flew into the tumultuous clouds.
“Come here, my sweet boy.”
Oliver’s momma stood in the doorway of the shed. Rain doused her from above. The blue that had been spilled was almost washed away. She beckoned and he ran into her arms. “It’s gone now,” she said, hugging him tight. “It’ll never come back.” Oliver felt his nanna’s strong hands on his shoulders as the women wrapped him in safety once more.
“And if it does,” Oliver’s nanna said, “we’ll be ready.”
He watched his nanna roll the precious parchment and secure it with twine, and the droplets of rain that had settled on its surface fell to the ground like flecks of gold.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Artisan Craftsmanship by Kendra Smart
Veronica “Ronnie” Flynn had always been something of a collector. Whether it was baubles or trinkets, knick-knacks or collectibles, Ronnie loved a little bit of everything. Every item was special because she knew that each little treasure had a story to tell. A long forgotten history that made it unique, gave it that spark of character.
Flynn knew about personality, she wore a big smile and toted an even grander heart. Charming, beguiling. Intriguing. She was the friend that showed up in the movie screen, the Jane Russell to Marilyn Monroe. A true saleswoman worthy of her sales, both online and at the occasional local flea market or church sale.
Ronnie had a talent for anything she put her hands on, and the creative energy ran deep. Her heart was in the yarn weaving, available for any with eyes to see. The things she had taught herself to be able to map out and create always brought her joy and moments of inspiration. It became an obsession, if she were honest. Always a new project idea, always a new pattern calling for her hands to breathe life into it from the movement of her hands and the needles.
Crochet had always provided a safe place for her to meditate through the obstacles of life. Ronnie had taken her love for yarn and creation and gone to the business side of a hobby.
Intentional woven goods, meant to promote protection and prosperity. Ronnie sold her heart.
“Comfort’’s Embracables”
The love she never seemed to fall upon only served to bring to her web an endless reserve of fresh supplies.
All she had to do was say hello, they took over from there. The beginning always made her so giddy, only in the craft stores surrounded by endless bins of yarn did this happiness light her.
This one was ready for sheering.
He had already broken her first rule and been disrespectful.
But now his lips had spoken lies, oozing forth with sweet falsehoods bearing sole intent, and not even a charming approach. Nay. This man had come to her with a hint of Aspartame. She had known the lies as they left his lips but her eyes went to his hair.
Lush and thick, long and past his shoulders…and even cared for. Her hand always longed and lusted for the softness in this world, but when it met her fingertips, it was a pleasure unlike anything she knew…second only to one feeling.
She let her fingers swim through his hair, watching his eyes go back…probably envisioning all the nasty, dirty things he wished she would do. Ronnie mused on how his chestnut hair would look with the new emerald yarn she had gotten for a steal earlier in bulk. She really loved this part. Finishing a project.
She knew the chestnut hair would card beautifully with the deep green variation of yarn. She straddled him and as she did, she drew her fingers back together into her palm, grabbing a fist full of hair. The last thing he saw was her size 6.5mm coming for his eye socket.
‘Just Emotions‘ is exactly as it states, a group of writers who had feelings they wanted to express in poem form. Inside, there are a range of emotions to explore. Each writer has given a bit of themselves to you, each in their own way.
We hope that you enjoy these writings and that among the poems you may find some thing you can identify with or relate to. Thank you for giving us this chance to open the catacombs and share with you.
Enter the minds of these women in horror feel your way through the darkness and escape the terror if you can, but above all enjoy the fear. These women are not just a pretty face. Featuring, in order of appearance: Jo-Anne Russell, Caitlin Marceau, Joanna Parypinski, Joanna Koch, Abby Andresen, Valerie B. Williams, Morrison, Laura J. Hickman, Faith Dincolo, Kala Godin, Suzanne Madron, Hailey Piper, Sara C. Walker, Erin Shaw, Aubrey Campbell, Mei Kerr, RL Meza, Emma Johnson-Rivard, Naching T. Kassa, Hayley Wynne, Gemma Files and Alice Loweecey.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Burning Down the House… by Rie Sheridan Rose
…okay…maybe not that drastic a reaction, but it was my first thought. When the lawyer stopped me with a hand on my arm on my way out of the meeting to read Mother’s will, I was taken aback by his temerity. Seriously? I didn’t know this man from Adam, and he had the effrontery to touch me like we were friends.
“Excuse me?” I asked, looking down at his hand.
At least he had the sense to move it away and mumble an apology. “I’m sorry, Miss Carstairs. It’s just…there’s one more thing.”
“What is it? I’ve got a dinner engagement in an hour.” Of course, that was a lie, but he didn’t know that.
“Your mother asked me to give you something after all the others had gone. She was most adamant about that.” He moved away to scurry behind his desk and pick up something off the floor.
I have to admit, I was intrigued. I’m not sure my mother and I had exchanged more than a half dozen words since she became ill. And then she died, leaving me the house while splitting what turned out to be not inconsiderable assets between my siblings. It was just like her. Leaving me a decrepit ruin while making my two brothers and sister millionaires.
Mr. Forsythe came back to me with a large wooden crate in his arms. “She was most desperate that you receive these, and that no one else know.” He handed me the box.
I glanced down and saw dozens—maybe hundreds—of old photographs. I couldn’t make out many details. A spot of 60s Polaroid, the edge of a tintype, some formal portraits, others candid snapshots. “What am I supposed to do with this garbage?”
“That’s entirely up to you. They are your property now. Personally, I would go through them carefully. There is a lot of history in this box.” He dusted his hands together, and I got the message loud and clear.
I took the box to my car and set it in the passenger seat. Despite myself, I was curious. I picked up a handful of the photos and sorted through them. Each image had a neat caption on the back in Mother’s meticulous hand. Aunt Ethel and Uncle Charlie; The Reynolds Family; Christmas, 1958; Carstairs Family Reunion, 1984. Many time and place rather than who was in the photo. Still, a bit interesting.
And then I saw it—peeking out of a stack. A face I would recognize anywhere, any when. My cousin Paul. It was a good thing I was sitting down. It felt like a physical blow to the chest—seeing his face again.
My mind raced back to that night. Home alone. A knock at the door. My favorite cousin, bringing a bottle of wine and a wink.
“Everyone’s gone for the night, aren’t they, Lizzy? I didn’t want you to get lonely all alone in this big house. Thought I would come keep you company.”
He was right. The family had gone away for the weekend, but I couldn’t get time off work. I’d just started, and the boss was a stickler for the rules. Mother and Dad had agreed to let me stay home alone if I promised not to have anyone over. But surely Paul didn’t count.
“Come in.” I grinned up at him. I’d had a crush on him my entire life.
My life was never the same.
The wine was strong and went straight to my head. It might even have been drugged, though I have no way to prove it. I know I got giggly, and lost all sense of reality…and then—
—No. I can’t talk about it. Not even to myself.
My next clear memory is Paul crumpled at the foot of the basement stairs. And a sense of triumph. I spent the rest of the weekend digging in the basement and then covering everything up. No one was ever the wiser. Or so I thought.
With a trembling hand, I turned over the photo. Paul Reynolds 1978-1997 — Rest in Peace now, Lizzy. Your secret is safe.
Poems exploring hell and damnation. Tales of sorrow, vengeance, betrayal, and redemption. Ghosts, ghouls, and demons stalk these pages. Don’t read in a lonely house…in a darkened room by a single candle…
…unless you like the touch of an icy finger up your spine.
Alisha Brown led a mundane life until the day monsters started trying to kill her and random strangers began to shy away from her in awe.
All hell broke loose, quite literally, after Randy Thomas turned right on Main for Honey’s instead of making a left for home and then murdered his beloved wife in an unusually gruesome way. Escaping police and stopping traffic in New York City with a gas-spewing tentacle erupting from his mouth, his fears are confirmed: That one small backslide would serve as the final tipping point for all mankind, inviting in a timeless destructive force that would lead him to the frontlines of the war to end all wars.
A growing population has succumbed to their worst fears, some transforming into dreaded fictional monsters—leaving the streets flooded with vampires, werewolves, spontaneously combusting humans, and other horrors—while others have become angels and demons determined to fight in the holy war they believe is upon them.
Questions soon arise as Randy’s and Alisha’s roles in this bizarre apocalypse become uncertain. One is a professed sinner, the other an asexual virgin. Each has been touched by the hand of fate, and each believes they are humanity’s last hope. But belief can be a funny thing…
The Divine Darkness is the first installment of The Divine Darkness apocalyptic horror trilogy.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Far From Perfect by Melissa R. Mendelson
“Stop picking.”
Mary Beth glanced at her grandmother. She was flawless. Back then, they knew what they were doing, but today, we were lucky enough not to eat mud. “Was my mother perfect?”
Mary Beth’s grandmother stared at the thread in-between the girl’s fingers. “At first.” She tensed as one of the girl’s fingers bent the thread. “I told her not to pick.” She grabbed a pair of scissors nearby. “This will hurt for a minute,” and she pushed the girl’s hand aside, cutting the thread down to the skin.
“Ow! That hurt,” Mary Beth said.
“I told you not to pick.” Her grandmother ran her fingers through Mary Beth’s hair. “Perfect.” She touched her face. “Flawless.”
“I’m not a doll,” Mary Beth growled.
“We are dolls,” her grandmother said.
“Did Grandpa play with you?”
Her grandmother smacked her across the face. “Don’t be wise, and don’t be like your mother.”
“What was my mother even like?” Mary Beth rubbed one side of her face.
Her grandmother pulled up a small chair. The chair creaked and moaned, but her grandmother remained flawless.
“Do you even miss her?”
“Of course, I miss her. I made her.”
“Did you make me?”
Her grandmother sadly shook her head.
“When your mother came undone, she took what I hope was the best parts of herself, and she created you. And then…. She was gone.” A small, blue thread shaped into a tear slid down her face. “I discarded the rest.” She touched Mary Beth on the knee, wiping the tear away with her other hand. “You’re the best of her.”
“What if I come undone?”
“You do not let anyone pull your strings, do you understand me?”
Mary Beth flinched at her grandmother’s tone.
“You stand strong and proud, and don’t let anyone under your skin. Stop picking.” She sighed as Mary Beth found another stray thread. “I am trying to do what is right by you.”
“I am not for sale,” Mary Beth said, smacking at her flowered dress. “Why do people think they can buy us?”
“Because they have a desperate need to own people.”
“Ow.” Mary Beth flinched as she tugged at the thread on her leg. “That hurt too.”
“Stop picking,” her grandmother said. “Or I’ll cut it down like the last one.”
Mary Beth stopped picking. A chime caught her attention, and she paled at its ring. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you.”
Her grandmother touched her hand as a shadow fell over them, and to her dismay, Mary Beth was quickly whisked away. She watched Mary Beth be carried over to the door, and Mary Beth smiled at her. She returned her smile, but then she looked down and realized that Mary Beth had tied a thread around her foot.
“No,” her grandmother gasped, looking up in horror as Mary Beth continued to smile at her.
“I am not for sale.” Mary Beth still smiled as her stitching was pulled apart.
Melissa R. Mendelson is the author of the Sci-Fi Novella, Waken. She also has a prose poetry collection called, This Will Remain With Us published by Wild Ink Publishing. Her short story collections, Better Off Hereand Name’s Keeper can be found on Amazon/Amazon Kindle.
If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: www.MelissaMendelson.com
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
The Wet Woman by Elaine Pascale
“This was the day your father lost his mind,” Rose’s mother said as she pulled the photo from the box. They had been going through memories, discarding duplicates and pausing on the ones that elicited gut punches of emotions.
This comment made no sense. The picture in question was of Rose’s father as a young boy, maybe eight or nine, posing with his father while visiting the Everglades. Her grandfather’s face was obscured by a large sun hat; her father squinted at the camera, posing in front of thick fronds. How could he have lost his mind then, when he was just recently diagnosed with dementia?
Rose asked her mother that exact question.
“Both things are true, Rose Marie,” her mother chided. “He lost his mind then as a boy, and he is losing his mind now as an old man.” Rose’s mother frowned at the photo. “Let’s discard it.”
“Wait.” Rose snatched the picture from her mother. “I might want it.”
Rose’s mother clicked her tongue. “You want a reminder of nonsense? That’s when he thought he saw ‘The Wet Woman.’”
It was Rose’s turn to scold. “The Wet Woman? Dad just made her up to scare us kids. Keep us from getting too close to the water.”
Her mother shook her head sadly. “I wish.” She pointed to the room where Rose’s father was resting. “He’s always believed she was real. Very real.” Her mother smiled sardonically. “She’s almost ‘the other woman’ in our marriage.”
Rose was beginning to worry that her mother was disassociating from reality, too, and that she would have to take care of them both.
“He loses more and more every day.” Her mother said. “I just hope…”
“He doesn’t forget us?”
The older woman nodded.
Rose did not need any more of an impetus to spend time with her father. She wanted to talk to him while she still could. Mostly, she wanted to listen.
Her father sat on his recliner in her parent’s bedroom and looked to the window. He didn’t turn when Rose entered; she assumed he didn’t hear her. He became animated when she put the photo in his sights.
He nodded before saying, “That was it…that was the trip. We were there with my Uncle Ron.”
Rose couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I didn’t know you had an Uncle. Grandpa had a brother?”
He nodded sadly. “We were never to discuss him. While we were taking that picture, Uncle Ron was starting a fire for our dinner. He was moving around in the fronds when…he saw her.”
“The Wet Woman?”
He met Rose’s eyes; he looked both perplexed and relieved that someone was hearing what he was saying. “She was sitting in the water, half of her beneath the surface. The part that was showing…that was all woman. The part below…lord only knows.”
Rose nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“She was struggling with something, we couldn’t see what, but she was pleading for help. Uncle Ron, he went over and put a hand on her shoulder…” The old man paused, shuddering. “He stuck to her.”
“His hand was stuck?” Rose asked.
“Like glue. He couldn’t free himself and she dragged him into the water with her. She pulled him beneath the surface.”
“Then what, dad? What did you do?”
He shrugged. “I did nothing. I was just a kid, but your grandpa tried to find him. The water was dark, murky. He couldn’t…he couldn’t find him. Uncle Ron was gone. We reported it, of course, but no one would listen.” His voice trembled in a way that verified the story.
“My grandparents blamed my dad. They didn’t believe the story either, but they felt he had something to do with Uncle Ron’s disappearance. Dad never got over it.” He shut his eyes for a moment before saying, “No one ever believed us.”
Her father’s frustration and sorrow were finally apparent to Rose. She regretted that she and her siblings had made fun of the Wet Woman, turning her into some slumber party game. “I’m sorry that no one took you seriously.”
He shrugged again. “It’s the hand I was dealt. I’ll go to my grave with it.” He gave a doleful chuckle. “That’ll happen sooner rather than later, now.”
Rose took the photo from him and examined it closely. She could make out something dark in the fronds, a shadow. When she looked back at him, she saw a clarity in his eyes that had been missing lately.
“I want to keep this,” she told him, “I want to remember that this happened to you.” She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “And I believe you.”
The women of Cape Cod have a story that is dying to be told. If only they could live long enough to tell it.
When Fiona Walker is contracted to write about a party attended by her social circle, her friends begin dying. She captures the competition and misery of the women around her through three different stories.
In Wishes, Melanie Voss discovers a Time Between Time where nothing that happens counts. Initially, Time Between Time is a welcome escape from a life spent watching the clock while doing chores for her family. But something sinister is in the Time Between Time and it is headed straight for Melanie.
Death and Taxes tells the story of Nashville DeCota, the Cape Capo. Nash swears that she is not the Island Impaler, nor the Tooth Snatcher, but she has just as many skeletons in her closet. When her husband, Derrick, is kidnapped, she has to come clean about her crimes if she ever wants to see him again.
Fiona tells her own story in Hazing, where she finds that the real source of evil behind the deaths of her friends is worse than she could have ever imagined.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
The Archivist’s Curse by Kathleen McCluskey
The storm had driven him into the ruins. Water dripped from his sleeves as Edwin Langley, archivist and historian of ancient texts, stumbled through the rotted doors of Sorrowmoor Monastery. Moss crept up the stone walls and the air was thick with the scent of decay and forgotten prayers. He shook the rain from his coat, eyes falling on a bundle half buried in dust on the altar.
A scroll, wrapped tight in cracked leather and bound with a seal older than language lay among the filth. Beside it a journal lay open, brittle soaked pages whispering secrets in faded ink. A name was scrawled across the top, Brother Caldus.
Edwin’s hands trembled as he unrolled the scroll.
It wasn’t Latin. It wasn’t Greek or ancient Sumarian. He squinted his eyes and looked closer, not Aramaic, it seemed to be something far more primitive, almost wrong. A long, slow shiver ran through his body. His fingers, driven by a hunger he didn’t recognize, pulled his pen from his satchel.
He began to copy. One name, then another and another. They flowed like water through his pen. As he wrote, the wind howled louder. Drops of rain began to drum against the parchment but the ceiling above hadn’t a single hole. By the tenth name, the ink had changed. No longer black but red. As if the scroll was bleeding through his pen. He paused.
And then he heard it.
A breath, too close. A footstep, behind him. When he turned, there was nothing. Only the ruined chapel and the dark forest beyond its shattered windows.
The journal beside him flipped on its own, revealing a final, desperate entry: They are not names to remember. They are names to forget. Each one is a door. Each one is a lock, until you speak them aloud.
Edwin’s pen clattered to the floor.
He had read every name. Silently, but had mouthed them, shaping each cursed syllable with his lips. The rain intensified.
A cold hand touched the back of his neck. He spun, flashlight flickering wildly. Shapes moved just beyond the edges of the beam. Too thin. Too long. Their forms shifted, slithering between the raindrops. Dozens of eyes blinked open in the darkness, each watching, each waiting.
He ran. Out into the storm, scroll tucked under his arm, the journal soaked and forgotten behind him. The names burned into his mind, tattooed across his thoughts like brands.
He made it back to his flat in Cambridge by dawn. Locked every door. Lit every light but the shadows moved and the names, they wouldn’t stop whispering, in every drip of water. In every creak of the floorboards. He tried to write them backward, to cancel them out. But it only summoned more.
On the seventh day, Edwin vanished. His apartment was found in disarray. His journal laid open on the desk, the pages torn and nailed to the walls like warnings or protections. Each one with the same desperate message scrawled across them: DO NOT READ THE NAMES. DO NOT SPEAK THEM.
But someone always does, especially when the rain begins to fall.
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.
Nina D’Arcangela is a quirky horror writer who likes to spin soul rending snippets of despair. She reads anything from splatter matter to dark matter. She's an UrbEx adventurer who suffers from unquenchable wanderlust. She loves to photograph abandoned places, bits of decay and old graveyards.
Nina is co-owner of Sirens Call Publications, co-founder of the horror writer's group 'Pen of the Damned', and if that isn't enough, put a check mark in the box next to owner and resident nut-job of Dark Angel Photography.
Spreading the Writer's Word 