The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
The Ember
by Naching T. Kassa
The screaming had finally faded away.
I sat with Mark, my husband, cradling his bandaged head in my lap. The loft lay quiet and warm around me, smelling of must and hay.
I still couldn’t believe how we’d come to this moment. True, the aliens had always despised us and the life we led alongside them had been an uneasy one, but they had never acted upon their hatred. They had, at least, tolerated us.
Things had changed, however, when one man rose and gave them voice. It was he who directed them to attack. He who forced us from our homes. He who led the mob meant to slaughter us.
Mark stirred. Strangely enough, one of our own had struck him down. Faro was young, a neighbor from the town we lived in. He had tried to harm the young girl, Amara, who had met us at the barn door. The one who had given us shelter.
Mark’s eyes opened and he peered about. I could only imagine how disoriented he must be. The present moments must have come crashing down upon him for he suddenly rose up on an elbow and cried, “How long have I been out?”
“Three hours.”
“Three!” he scrambled to his feet, then slipped back to the floor, holding his head in both hands. I wrapped an arm about him.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
“They’ve gone. Faro told them to leave us. That girl, Amara, tried to stop them. She followed them. Oh, Mark, I heard screaming. It went on for so long. I don’t know what happened. I was afraid to look outside.”
Mark rose. He moved toward the ladder.
“No!” I cried. “Don’t go down there!”
“I have to see,” he replied, descending.
We crept across the dirt floor of the barn. I blinked against the darkness. The outline of the door lay ahead in the gloom. When Mark reached it, he pulled it open a crack and peered through.
“Oh my—get back, Lina!” he cried. “Get back! Up into the loft!” He grasped me by the wrist and dragged me away.
It was too late though. I had already glimpsed what lay behind the door. Faro and the others, their bodies bloody and twisted, had been impaled in the yard.
We didn’t make it to the ladder. A soft click and a blaze of yellow light revealed we weren’t alone.
I turned before Mark did. The alien stood, his weapon trained upon us. My heart sank the moment I looked upon him.
He was grey and wore the same headgear as the others who had pursued us. A short female stood at his side. They had entered through the entrance at the rear of the building. Mark and I faced them, unarmed.
“Any more of you up there?” the male asked.
I shook my head.
“Now don’t lie to me. If there are more of you up there, call them on down.”
“There are no others,” Mark said. “If you’re looking for the ones who were with us, you’ll find them outside the barn door.”
The female clutched at the male’s arm, an anxious expression upon her face. Fear. How easily it led to hate.
“You two,” the male said, gesturing toward the door. “Out.”
I glanced up at Mark as he took my hand. Only one thought comforted me. At the very least, we would die together.
Mark opened the door and stepped out into the dark.
The forms I had glimpsed seemed far worse in the gloom. We stood in what appeared to be a forest of twisted shadows.
I glanced back as the male and female exited the barn. The weapon the male held illuminated the yard. At sight of the bodies, the female’s face paled. She rushed forward even though the male called her back.
She elbowed her way past Mark and me, falling into the dirt before one of the many impaled bodies before us, and sobbed.
“Clara,” the male cried. “Oh Clara, you can’t help her now.”
Mark and I stared. I recognized the body whose hand Clara now clung to. It was Amara. The one who had invited us into the barn. The one none of us believed.
The male rushed to Clara’s side and, grasping her arm, helped her up.
“She was like my own, Vic,” Clara cried, falling against him. “My own little girl. I can’t leave her. Not like this. Those monsters! How could they do this? How could anyone allow them to do this?”
It was then I noticed the weapon in the male’s hand. Long and slim, it held no trigger. It was a light. Something the aliens called, “flashlight.”
He turned it on us. “Go,” he said. “Go to the house. There’s food there. Take as much as you need. The mob moved East but they’ll be back. They always come back.”
Mark and I nodded in thanks, then hurried away.
I looked back only once when we left the house. The couple had lowered Amara to the ground and the female held her in her arms. It was strange to see one of our beautiful, hairless people lying in the arms of the gray-haired woman.
And, for the first time in a long time, my heart held a small ember of hope.
.
Fiction © Copyright Naching T. Kassa
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from Naching T. Kassa:
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A collection of manuscripts, meticulously penned by John H. Watson M.D., is unearthed in 2019 amidst the restoration of Broadmoor Hospital, found inexplicably in the grave of Richard Dadd. The manuscripts’ concealed journey and their remaining unpublished raise a myriad of questions, enveloping them in a veil of mystery.
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