The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Soul Searcher  
by Alex Grehy

There was nothing odd in the studio when the police broke in.

The neighbours had called about the foetid smell. The cloying stench of dead, rotting flesh, they assumed, yet it invaded the building like a living entity. They expected a corpse, putrid, obscene – the air was so hot in the glare of the lights, but the studio was bright and pristine.

If the Searcher had known his final experiment would fail, would he have even tried?

He was a clever man with eclectic interests, a small obituary in the local paper later reported. His photography was acclaimed for its attention to detail and outstanding clarity. Many found his fascination with taxidermy repellent, but he always maintained that the death of his subjects was nothing to do with him. 

He’d lied, of course – trapping them, alive, torturing them ever more inventively, drawing out the moment of their death, taking the time to get his cameras aligned.

He never found what he searched for – just one image of a soul – a form, a tinge, a shimmer, anything.

He was an erudite man, as you might expect, an expert in old philosophies and new ideologies. But his knowledge was unleavened by compassion. He concluded, right or wrong, that animals had no souls. So he moved on to humans, choosing subjects among the dispossessed, the lonely. Still no souls appeared. He concluded they had been unworthy.

He preyed on the virtuous.

He preyed on the innocent.

He preyed on the holy.

Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING!

His apparent wisdom led him to the obvious conclusion – driven by the nobility of his life’s work, the only soul on earth must be his.

There was nothing odd in the studio when the police broke in. They expected a body, putrid, obscene – the air was so hot in the glare of the lights, but the studio was bright and pristine.

Which would have disappointed him, having taken such pains to set up the lighting – shadowless, pure, a heaven of sorts to suspend his soul. He’d angled the cameras accurately; the precision of the channels that would siphon his blood was a work of genius; dissolving the salt that would trip the shutter release at the predicted moment of his death, given his heart rate and length of incision. If only the world had witnessed the elegance of his scheme as he took a knife to his wrists. How he’d hoped that the beauty of his departing soul would reflect on his gracefully posed body.

How could he have known that souls were elusive and cunning? They were never going to be captured on film. How could he have known of their patience, those tortured souls just waiting for vengeance? How could he have known the tunnel vision that presaged his death was caused by their shadows? The animals, the children, the vagrants, the clergy, all crowded in for redress. They took him apart, limbs, organs, cells – probing and tearing until not one atom remained. Fogged film and the malodour of their mortification was all they left behind as they floated away, unavenged, for the searcher had no soul to atone for his crimes.

There was nothing odd in the studio when the police broke in. They expected a body, putrid, obscene – the air was so hot in the glare of the lights, but the studio was bright and pristine.

.

Fiction © Copyright Alex Grehy
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Alex Grehy:

After a lifetime of writing technical non-fiction, Alex Grey is fulfilling her dream of writing poems and stories that engage the reader’s emotions. Her work has been featured by a wide range of publications including Siren’s Call, Raconteur, Bookends Review, and Toasted Cheese. One of her comic poems is also available via a worldwide network of public fiction dispensers managed by French publisher, Short Edition. Her ingredients for contentment are narrow boating, greyhounds, singing and chocolate. It is a sweet life, yet Alex’ original view of the world has led to her best friend to say ‘For someone so lovely, you’re very twisted!

Please click here to discover more!   

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

If the barn could talk…  
by Alex Grehy

Before the developers came to demolish, burn and build,

a local reporter asked, “If the barn could talk, what stories

might it tell?”

.

Conservationists picked up the theme, “What if,” they said,

“Our past has seeped into the red cedar walls, greying shingles

and hard dirt floor?”

.

The archaeologists came up with a plan, “If it has to come down,

let us take it apart nail by nail, learning with love and respect

over the next ten years.

.

The realtors replied, “The past is not held in this heap of junk,

reminisce with the farmer, but let us get on, the people need

our new homes.” 

.

But the farmer was dead, his city children moved on with the

cash from the sale; the interested parties came up with a plan,

called in a spirit guide.

.

The shaman arrived under glowering skies, told everyone to go

back to town, “Most spirits are shy and will not talk when there

are strangers around.”

.

He pulled open the door and coughed as chaff flew in the breeze,

the spirit of corn, reaped over the years, overwhelmed him with

dreams of the sun.

.

He stumbled out to the fields and listened, appalled, as the 

barn told its tales to the sky, which roiled and churned with

its evil intent.

.

“I am made of dead trees; do you think they were pleased

to be felled? Do you think the clay of my shingles asked to

be torn from the earth?”

.

“Do you think that the animals slaughtered here gave their

lives voluntarily? Do you think that the farmer was ignorant

of his wife’s infidelity?”

.

“Do you think that this story, as old as mankind, of lust and

betrayal and cold, hard revenge, was not enacted within

my walls?”

.

The shaman convulsed on the ground, clapped his hands 

on his ears, not wanting to hear more malevolent tales, but

the pitiless barn talked on.

.

“She brought her lover here to roll in the hay, their sin was

delicious but I wanted more; the ploughshare that fell put

an end to his fun.”

.

“She screamed so loud her husband came by, saw the scene

and imagined the rest, I put the pitchfork within reach of his

vengeful hand.”

.

“With blood seeping into my floor, my spirit grew bold; I 

offered a beam and a coil of rough rope, and so

the farmer hung.”

.

“There have been many more, this jinx springs from

deep in the earth. Demolish, destroy me and build on my

roots – it will not banish the bane.”

.

The shaman crawled towards town, but lightning ignited the 

stubble, burned the barn then his body to ash, and his warnings 

went untold.

.

The last I heard, they’d built a road, mall and houses, though 

construction fatalities were high, they named this cute modern

village “The Old Barn.”

.

Fiction © Copyright Alex Grehy
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

More from author Alex Grehy:

After a lifetime of writing technical non-fiction, Alex Grey is fulfilling her dream of writing poems and stories that engage the reader’s emotions. Her work has been featured by a wide range of publications including Siren’s Call, Raconteur, Bookends Review, and Toasted Cheese. One of her comic poems is also available via a worldwide network of public fiction dispensers managed by French publisher, Short Edition. Her ingredients for contentment are narrow boating, greyhounds, singing and chocolate. It is a sweet life, yet Alex’ original view of the world has led to her best friend to say ‘For someone so lovely, you’re very twisted!

Please click here to discover more!