Alex Grehy(she/her) enjoys writing quirky, thought-provoking horror and is a regular contributor to The Sirens Call and Ladies of Horror Flash Project. Her fiction and essays on being a lady of horror have featured in a range of publications, including Spread: Tales of Deadly Flora. Alex’s first poetry collection, Last Species Standing, which explores mankind’s relationship with nature and technology, is available on Amazon.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Surviving Reprisal by Elizabeth H. Smith
The morning sun burned her eyes. She’d been in darkness too long, shrouded in rags, planted without a marker by a man she’d never forget. The scent of his blood remained with her, a memento of the claw marks she left. The heaviness in her heart and soul preserved her despite the worms crawling in and out of her flesh. She was no longer among the living, but not quite dead—she lied somewhere in between, not yet at rest.
She couldn’t rest; not after what happened.
Her soul refused to leave her body, just as her fury wouldn’t cool. Its flame burned hot enough to pump foul blood through collapsed veins. She dug with her fingertips until they were nothing but bone, and with those hard nubs she moved earth until she reached the surface.
She sniffed the air as soon as she was able. It was crisp, sharp as a knife. The cool moisture felt good against her dried-out shell of leathery skin. She looked down at her bony, decayed hands, confident they would serve their final purpose, just as soon as she found the man she searched for.
More About Elizabeth H. Smith: Elizabeth H. Smith is a storyteller who writes while trying to keep her cat, Luna off the keyboard. The musical group, Rasputina is her muse. She was born in the state of New York and would never feel at home anywhere else.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
No Place Like Home by K.R. Morrison
“There’s no place like home!”
I had uttered those words when I’d first woken up/gotten back/whatever. Everyone was so relieved to see me come back to life.
But now that line didn’t seem to work anymore. Maybe it was because the cops had brought me home in the wee hours more than a couple of times this past month. Seems you can take the girl out of Ozzland, but not the reverse.
I had enjoyed my time there. I was the reigning monarch of all I surveyed. But now here I was, back in Doldrums-land again. Of course I was going to be restless—who wouldn’t be?
Auntie wiped her hands on a dishtowel and turned to me.
“That may be so, Dottie, but no matter. We are sending you to a boarding school in Topeka.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow.”
So, even though I whined, pleaded, threatened, and cajoled, I was shipped off to this ugly old bunch of buildings in the heart of the city. Usually that would have been great for night-prowling, but…
There was a curfew. Locks on the doors.
And—I had to wear a UNIFORM! Ghastly!
It was after my last attempt to make my garb more colorful that I was stuck in my room with no chance of redemption for at least a week. So what’s wrong with making a necklace out of squirrel heads? It’s not like we were going to run out of the little buggers any time soon.
I paced the room, drew nasty things on the walls with my own blood, ate a few pieces of wood out of the flooring. This kept me busy until boredom finally took over. Two days and I was done with this prison.
When I went to rearrange the furniture (by throwing it all out the window, I hoped), this waswhere a new adventure began.
On the wall was scratched a few words in some language I didn’t understand. What the hell?
So I recited them, just to see what would happen. I expected nothing, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The wall fell away, and I ventured through the gap. And into a dark forest, lit only by the moon up above.
“Well, here we go again,” I said, and started walking.
Turns out this forest was just on the edge of a huge plain, and as I walked into direct moonlight, I spied a familiar building.
My childhood home. Auntie and Unc were probably sound asleep.
“There truly is no place like home,” I chortled happily.
I started running, just wanting to get back into my bed and forget the last few weeks.
But there, gleaming in the moonlight like a beacon, was the ax we used to chop up firewood. It called to me, and I answered.
I pulled it out of the woodpile, and stared at the house with a new mission.
Vengeance.
Lizzie Borden didn’t have a patch on what I could do…
All hell broke loose, as demon fought saint, and undead fought mortal. Fangs and swords, fire and light, mingled in a cacophony of noise that would have awakened the dead — if they hadn’t already been in the pitch of battle.
Toby was looking forward to celebrating his 21st birthday with family and friends. However, the day is shattered by the arrival of his sister, Erica, fresh out of the juvenile detention center, where she has lived in isolation most of her life. There is something very wrong with her still; witness her biting the ear of her taxi driver and licking the blood from her lips, and the way she antagonizes everyone around her. The other thing that is very off-putting about the day is a gift he receives – a musty tent and a few iron spikes that have been lying in the ground for years. Toby faints at the sight of the “treasure,” while Erica reacts violently and runs off to who-knows-where. While he is unconscious, Toby learns who he truly is, and of his mission.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Who Waits For You In The End by Melissa R. Mendelson
“There are two estranged sisters. One is Karma, the other is Life. Karma has been talking incessantly lately, but Life is lost for words.”
“I thought this was supposed to be a ghost story.”
“Shut up, Bob.”
“You shut up, Amy. She invites all of us over for a good Halloween party, and we’re crashing at her house since her parents are away. And she’s ending the night with a ghost story about Karma and Life?” Bob snorted as his two friends next to him laughed. “I could tell a better story than that.”
“Want to try?” Providence asked. Her eyes narrowed as the fireplace behind her cast an eerie glow around her. “I don’t have to tell my story.”
“Go ahead, Providence,” Amy said as her friend next to her continued to braid her hair. “I would like to hear your ghost story.”
Two teenaged girls nearby muttered to each other, but they fell silent under Providence’s stare.
“Karma didn’t know what to do, and Life was not helping. Things were beyond out of sorts, the world was beyond crazy, and something had to be done. But it was too much for her, so one night, she and Life descended down into a very dark tunnel that seemed to have no end. They came to a stone wall, and Karma removed a silver chain from her neck. At the end of the chain was a very small key, and a keyhole appeared in the stone wall. She inserted the key.” The boys nearby laughed at that word, inserted. She shook her head and continued, “The wall disappeared.”
“Thought it was stone,” Bob’s friend muttered.
“Inside was more darkness. Karma took a step forward, but Life grabbed her by the arm, finally speaking after all this time. ‘Maybe, this is not the best idea,’ Life said, but Karma told her that it was too late to go back. And it had been awakened.”
“What was awakened?” The girl braiding Amy’s hair asked.
“A creature. A very old creature that maybe surpassed time itself.”
“I doubt that,” Amy said. “But go on.” She winked at Bob, who smiled at her.
“This creature resembles an owl, but its eyes are black. Its feathers are soft, white bone; bone from what, I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone would know, and this creature flew past Karma and Life.”
“Great story,” Bob said. “And what does this creature supposedly do?”
“It hunts,” Providence said. “It hunts anyone that has a stain on their soul.” She looked around the room, and her gaze was cold and unforgiving, despite the fire raging behind her. “If you did anything, anything mean, anything terrible, anything unforgivable, it will find you, but the last thing that you will see is not the owl. It is what lies within it.”
“What’s that?” The teen-aged girl had stopped braiding Amy’s hair.
“Yourself,” Providence answered.
“Great story,” Amy said.
“Great story,” Bob repeated. “I’m sleeping in your parents’ bed.” He stood up from where he was sitting. “Joining me?” He stared at Amy.
“Let’s go.” Amy followed him over to the stairs.
“There are other rooms upstairs,” Providence said. She watched the two male teenagers follow the other girls up the stairs. The only one that remained behind was the one that had braided Amy’s hair. “Jessie?” The girl stared at the fire behind Providence. “Something wrong?”
“You know that there is no such thing as decency anymore, right? If you’re kind, then you’re weak.”
“I’m very aware of that.”
“Then Providence, if such a creature were to exist, then we would all be dead.”
“Maybe, Jessie. Maybe. Good night.”
“Good night, Providence.” Jessie walked toward the stairs, disappearing into the darkness above her.
A moment passed, and the brick wall near the fireplace shimmered. Life appeared with her pale complexion and long white hair. She laid a small hand on Providence’s shoulder, but she didn’t say a word.
“I know. I know that I let it out, and I don’t regret it.” Providence smiled as a scream was heard from upstairs. “They brought this upon themselves, no matter who they are.”
Life held up one pale finger.
“Jessie. She’ll be spared, even if she thinks herself weak. The rest?” She listened as more screams followed. “They left me no choice.”
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!
Burn Pit Prophet by Donna J. W. Munro
By the time the last flame died, and the coals cooled, I wasn’t myself.
My sun brown skin crackled with black ridges, weeping valleys, and crusted plateaus. My braids had melted away leaving only the wiry strands of metal I’d plaited in before they’d come for us. On the charcoal appendages that once were fingers, metal shadows marked the places where my love had given me gifts and treasures to wear, now melted away but for the brand they left in the process.
I’d walked through the fire pit they’d put us in. Climbed over the charred bodies of the other conquered mothers and children they’d offered their gods as payment for their works. They kept only our land, our animals, our treasures. All else became offering.
The leaders sneered at our ways. Said living as we did, without men leading and without warriors bleeding, meant we were an insane cult. Something so aberrant that we threatened the balance of the world. That our traditions, our songs, our prayers, even our gods had to be scrubbed from the memory of the world.
I stood before their chief, a fat painted demon man who spoke in grunts and shouts, I knew we had done no wrong. Others cried. Begged. Promised. But I saw the madness in the chief’s eyes. I saw the greed in his men at arms, the sneers of disgust when they saw our naked shoulders and knees. We were offensive to their power. We were a plague that they, only they, could wipe from all the earth.
None of the cries or pleas mattered in the face of their insanity.
No empathy can exist in a vacuum of love.
The pit we dug would be our grave. They told us that. Why did the others dig? The fathers and mothers did it so their children might live a little more life. The lovers did it hoping that compliance would allow them to escape. The children did it because the world hadn’t taught them to fear the unhinged beliefs of maniacs. So, they dug.
I prayed. I prayed to the ocean god to wash us away to safety. I beseeched our huntress to send the animals of the wood against the warriors clashing their swords in excitement. I mumbled and shouted to the Mother to open her cavernous mouth beneath us and swallow us up into the safety of her gut until the madness had passed.
My prayers were just as futile as the digging. None of it stopped the madmen’s rampage.
Every work of beauty they’d ever made—palace to shop, boats and huts, mosaics and frescos—all turned into towers of ash as the pit grew deeper. Next to the growing pile of earth from the hole, the warriors piled wood town from their homes, boats, and carts. Scrolls and paintings were piled to be lit as tinder.
“Please,” the eldress said when the mad chief called for the ramps to be blocked with us in the deep hole. As the warriors shoved the wood down the ramp towards us, others poured flaming pitch in on all sides of the pit, until we stood in the burning oily stew, not able to plea for our lives. As we cooked, scotching from foot to thigh and falling as muscles melted away in the slurry, our coherent please grew into a song of terrible truths.
The gods must’ve finally heard.
The flames leapt up fast then, ending the others with the burst of quick heat. Taking away their breath so they fell senseless into the conflagration.
All but me.
I burned. I felt every licking flame charring away layer after layer of my youthful flesh. My eyes cooked into stone and the fat inside boiled away and cooked the insides of me into plates of stiff leather. Above, the warriors sang songs of thanksgiving to the sky god, promising their faithfulness. Promising to cleanse the whole earth of nonbelievers.
Under their songs, I heard the whispers.
I heard what the real forces of life promised.
They couldn’t save us from our own rot. Humans hurting humans… ugly as it was, it wasn’t their business. But they could make it mine. They could make me strong enough.
The army marched while the fire still burned. Our sister city, a day to the east, lay open to them like a mother’s hug and they’d take it. They take everything.
I rose when the fire finally burned away all that was weak in me. The ash that colored my ridges and valleys had been my mothers and brothers. The bones shards piercing the blackened underside of my feet had been my children and my grandmothers. My father’s screams lay in my throat ready to vibrate the flesh from their muscles and bones with the songs they’d silenced.
I rose a prophet of a murdered people. A sybil for a civilization made ash.
I followed the stench of their madness.
I moved like a flame across pitch.
I danced like the fire of a sunset.
I’d show them what it felt like to burn.
I’d speak until their arrogant celebrations became blood gurgling pleas.
And I wouldn’t stop because the fire had burned me into an ashy vacuum.
In a dark future, people with money live in doomed cities and use the recently deceased as repurposed servants and workers called poppets. Ellie DesLoge is the teen heiress of the company that makes and distributes poppets–your basic reprogrammed flesh robot complete with training chips and kill switches. If Ellie does everything her Aunt Cordelia says, she’ll have a life of wealth and power. If she chooses to be what is planned for her, life will be perfect. Everything she ever dreamed. But something about her sweet poppet Thom goes against what Aunt Cordelia and tradition have taught her. Will she choose to believe what everyone knows is true or will she follow what her heart tells her about Thom? Her choice will change the world.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Clever Jack by Rie Sheridan Rose
Jack was a failed one. He knew it. Had always known it. His eyes didn’t match; his teeth were lop-sided; his maker had carved him too late—the rot had already begun…
But Jack was clever.
He used his psychic abilities—which all jack-o’-lanterns are born with—to whisper into Cedric’s ear. You don’t want to keep this reject around…someone might see it! You’d lose all claim to Pumpkin Master. No, you need to get rid of it as soon as you can! Take it to the forest and dump it there…
Of course, Cedric’s first inclination was to throw the malformed pumpkin to the curb…literally…but Jack wheedled him out of the notion.
C’mon, dude…you don’t want to do that! You might get caught, and you’d never hear the end of it. I bet your mom would ground you till Christmas if you did! Nah—you want to dump it in the woods. Think of the karma. Some deer will eat it or something. You’ll be a woodland hero.
Cedric liked the idea of some deer coming along and eating it. It would probably get sick and die, as gnarly as the pathetic thing was. That would be outstanding!
Cedric never had gotten the hang of karma.
But it worked. He took Jack to the woods and dumped him under a tree. “See you never, loser!”
Jack felt his grin expanding as he heard Cedric bounding out of the woods. Finally free!
He dared to rise onto his tiny legs and start wandering through the clearing.
“Anyone here?” he called softly.
A pinprick of light appeared on his right. “W-who are you?” whispered a tentative voice.
“My name is Jack. What’s yours?”
“They call me Pipsqueak,” came the reluctant answer, as a tiny creature tiptoed forward.
He didn’t look like a pumpkin…too tall and thin. Maybe a squash of some kind. Didn’t matter. He was a new friend…and potential accomplice.
“Nice to meet you, Pip. One can never have too many friends.”
“You…want to be my friend?”
“Sure!”
Pip’s light brightened visibly. “Shall I introduce you to the others?”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Pip gave a sharp whistle, and lights started appearing all over the woods. They were all shapes and sizes.
As the lights began converging on them, Jack smiled slyly. Yes, this is going to be fun.
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.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Honors for Dead Lovers by Marge Simon
Summer has fled. It is the dying season, when multiple graves beyond the house must be tended. I begin with floral arrangements, some more bountiful than others. Asters for Bob, who smelled of Lucky Strikes and leather, his kisses drove me wild. Wood Roses for Michael, strong as stone, with a grin that made me melt. Alas, our grunts and moans were hardly meant to last. A vase of Winter Jasmine for pale-haired Lars, with cobalt eyes and honeyed breath. The two of us in flagrante delicto, photos taken by his wife’s detective sadly ended our affair. Lastly, my sweet Samuel. He was a needy man, caring for his mother twenty years until her death. My dearest, always ready to shed tears whatever the movie, whatever the book. For his bones, a garland of my best wisteria. Tonight, I light long burning candles, one for each who shared my bed, except for Samuel. Tonight, his head rests on the pillow next to mine.
Cast from Darkness by Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo
Cast from Darkness is another triumphant collaboration between award-winning Speculative poets, Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo.
The poetry includes themes running the spectrum of the speculative genres and forms ranging from the haiku through many nuances of vere libre to the prose poem.
The Ladies of Horror Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
The Choirmaster by Elaine Pascale
Their parents had painstakingly crafted the costumes for the Halloween musical. Cats, bats, crows, and owls. Instructions were vague but the labor was large.
Invitations to the musical had been brought home in backpacks, mailed to members of the Booster’s club, and left in hymnals at three different denominations. Everyone planned to attend and the children practiced as if their lives depended on it.
The most difficult song was the last one. That was because it was in a language none of the children had ever heard before. The choirmaster encouraged the children to stretch their tongues and purse their lips, making their mouths nimble for foreign words.
“Brexla, vonapta, mirima, exundi,” the children chanted to the sporadic rhythm of the bone pipes, lithophones, and rattles.
“As if your lives depend on it,” the choirmaster instructed, boisterously repeating the words as he swung his hands in time to the music. He was the only one who seemed to understand the chaotic beat.
He wore a mask that looked like a plucked vulture head. His breastplate resembled a skeleton made of feathers. He had been recently assigned to this position. The former choirmaster had disappeared following the back-to-school program. This new choirmaster had entered with an energy that was admirable. He was so invested in the Halloween musical that no one had ever seen him without his costume.
“Brexla, vonapta, mirima, exundi,” the children chanted on the night of the production to a full house. It was standing room only. Even childless adults attended, due to the buzz surrounding the musical.
“Brexla, vonapta, mirima, exundi,” the children said over and over and the adults in the audience slipped into a deep sleep.
The choirmaster slipped from behind the podium and walked through the auditorium, taking money and jewelry from the slumbering adults.
“When will they wake up?” the child in the black cat costume asked.
The choirmaster shrugged. “I’ve never stayed around long enough to find out.”
“Why didn’t you fall asleep?” the child in the crow costume asked.
“Because I am not an adult,” the choirmaster said, tapping his mask with his fake vulture claw. “I mean, I am not an adult human.”
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.
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.
