Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Rie Sheridan Rose @RieSheridanRose @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 21, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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Anticipation  
by Rie Sheridan Rose 

I saw her again last night. Standing in the shadows. Motionless. Silent.

Only, there was no one there.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen this…shadow someone. She’s been there at the edge of my life since I was a child. I used to fear her. I’d have nightmares for a week after she appeared.

But, as I grew older, I got used to her presence. She’s become familiar. When I see her, I know I need to be on the lookout. Something is coming. Sometimes, it’s a good thing—like my letter of acceptance from Duke. Sometimes, it’s a bad thing—like the accident than killed my mother.

People scoff, but all I know is that something momentous is going to happen within twenty-four hours of a sighting. It always has.

So, today, something is coming. The last four times she’s shown up, something good happened—Nick’s proposal; Caroline’s birth; tenure; selling my novel. Beneficence incarnate. Makes me feel like I am overdue for disaster.

Nothing has happened so far. And it’s almost midnight. Nick thinks I’m crazy. That it’s all in my head.

I think it’s time.

I always knew it would come to this. That someday she’d expect me to repay her largess.

I’m going for a walk. I don’t expect to return. I can feel her waiting—wanting—anticipating.

Tonight, we become one.

 
Fiction © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose
Image courtesy of Rie Sheridan Rose.

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Overheard in Hell:
Dark Poetry

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.

Available on Amazon!

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The Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Marge Simon @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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Drawing Down the Moon 
by Marge Simon 

Armageddon came and went. They’d planned to tour Greece this summer, but now that’s out. They put the last of their pot in the Ford pickup, take Route 66 to where the mountains meet a brilliant Colorado sky. Below them, the canyon offers up a sweet warm wind that tousles their hair.

“Do you remember when we got this high?” Vera says.” Crazy times, the seventies,” her friend agrees. She wipes errant strands of hair from her eyes. At dusk, they walk along a forest path, stopping at an arch between the ruined and barren aspen. The moon looms huge above the eastern horizon. This is high country; the heavens are ablaze with light.

They light a joint, sitting on a wall of stones along the curve of the road. A distant river winds down the canyon floor, they’ve forgotten its name. There is a sudden rush of air and colors that are not colors but multiples of blue and silver. The wind is on their lips and the whole white night sings aloud.

Vera laughs, rises and steps off into the air. “We need no ship, we can fly there!” Holding hands, they reach to embrace the lunar glow.

.

Fiction © Copyright Marge Simon
Image courtesy of Rie Sheridan Rose 

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More from Marge Simon:

Victims_MargeSimon

Victims
by Marge Simon and‎ Mary Turzillo

The title of this collection sets you up for the surprise of lyrical stories of victimizations with unexpected endings for the villains. Be ready to have your heart opened and cheer for perceived victims, human (made and unmade) and other life forms, victorious in the hands of these two award-winning poets. —Linda D. Addison, award-winning author, HWA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and SFPA Grand Master.

Across histories and cultures and from Auschwitz to Babylon this book leaves you questioning who are the victims, and regardless of your conclusion you’re likely to get throat-punched. This is horror where everyone has a knife, and is ready to deliver this message: “Remember, you are always guilty. —Herb Kauderer, author of Fragments from the Book of the After-Dead.

Simon and Turzillo have only gone and startled me again. What a collection! Brutal. Beautiful. This quiver of poems strikes with the unflinching truth of persecution and oppression as seen through the lens of feminism. Prepare to come away bruised and yet strangely bolstered by Victims, a symphony of sadness orchestrated by two masters of dark poetry. —Lee Murray, Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-winner.

This is one of the braver dark poetry collections I’ve seen in a while. Horror poets generally employ victims in their work, but the focus is generally on the Evil. Turning the camera the other way is unusual, unsettling, emotionally risky, and surprisingly effective. From their stark opening take on Pygmalion, to the ending poem about the wasted life of Stateira of Persia, this powerful collection teases apart an impressive number of the threads of victimhood. Some are the usual cases, but quite a few are surprises, or reversals, or cases with unexpected layers. There is nothing repetitive about this collection. —Timons Esaias, winner of the Asimov’s Readers’ Award and the Winter Anthology Contest

Available on Amazon!

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Alex Grehy @indigodreamers @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Chasing Rainbows 
by Alex Grehy

Glowing rainbows fell bright

upon the earth, so beautiful

that no-one ever questioned

why they fell as bolts not bows.

.

Had aliens seeded legends of the 

pots of gold? First capturing human

imaginations then their flesh and souls

as greedy men chased elusive riches.

.

Some, the lucky ones, plunged

over unseen cliffs, blinded by

their obsessions; others starved,

lost in impossible longings. 

.

The colour attracted all who

could perceive it – monkeys, birds,

fish, all dying of exhaustion

chasing unattainable dreams.

.

Seeing only the white flash of lightning 

and fearing the approaching storm,

dogs and cattle fled to the monochrome

safety of the barn and the simple comfort

of their beds in the fragrant hay.

.

Fiction © Copyright Alex Grehy
Image courtesy of Rie Sheridan Rose.

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More from author Alex Grehy:

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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!   

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Sheikha A. @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on February 1, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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Benazir
by Sheikha A. 

to giving Venus a rainforest
.
It has begun raining nightmares –
red-striped lizard tails like sleet
.
slaking her glass dome of reality.
She stealths the days on acid feet;
.
her nights, cloudburst of molten lead.
She has /been/ warned: forfeit shadow/s
.
to the spirit of charity – emerald fruit
plantations on her mercurial being –
.
no one can touch her dark tresses:
canopy over secret lands she sows.
.
They say her death was mysterious;
she was excavated from a distance
.
of failure. Flakes of ice sparked fire
where she stepped. They harnessed
.
what they could not co-in/habit –
howls of her crying: falling rain –
.
re/constructing her seal: tombs
of grace. Motes of unbreathable air
.
lay low and heavy; emerald flashes
of noiseless thunder. Her wails pulse
.
in her veins. The night, black velvet.
The cosmos, panther in the wind.
.
.
for Marge Simon, Krysia Jopek and Saad Ali
.
.
Fiction © Copyright Sheikha A.
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

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More from author Sheikha A.:

Screen Shot 2019-12-17 at 10.57.17 AM.pngNyctophiliac Confessions:
Poems by Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee

“The night is cold enough to inspire poetry,” says Sheikha A. in her poem, “Reading My Bones.” This is the basis of Nyctophiliac Confessions – poems that are introspective and luminal, poems that require a certain amount of silence and space to be fully formed and appreciated. Reading these poems, I imagined that they were the kind of poems that assert themselves unbidden during a bout of insomnia. (A nyctophiliac being someone who loves the night or loves darkness).

Nyctophiliac Confessions is the 17th installment of Praxis’ chapbook series and contains twenty-six poems written by two poets, Sheikha A. and Suvojit Banerjee, interspersed with abstract paintings by Robert Rhodes.

Available Here!

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Lynn Ruzzo @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Invasive Species
by Lyn Ruzzo

As the newborn caps glowed in the soft moonlight, the flora around them shuddered with revulsion. These invaders did not belong. They were not of any kind the locals were familiar with. Their aura did not connect, their language was not the same. Fear deeper than any caused by bi-pedal infestation rooted itself within the forest’s conversation amongst itself.

The luminescent growth spread, and with it all succumbed to its conquering nature. It feasted on all that lived and died. It devoured the forest both from above and below. As it consumed, it reproduced, populating the dense land with nothing but itself.

As it reached the edge of that which was natural and it sensed the teeming world beyond, it prepared to spread until it could spread no more.

.

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Wicked Deeds: Witches, Warlocks, Demons and Other Evil Doer’s

Sometimes wicked people do wicked things simply because they can… The twelve stories in Wicked Deeds tell tales of witches and warlocks with ill intent, devilish demons bent on destruction, and other doers of evil who make the world a terrifying place. What is a mother to do when her daughter is gifted but lives under the thumb of her fanatical preacher husband who will brook no talk of the supernatural? What of a demon so desperate to free himself of a trap that he will force another to repeat his atrocities and condemn a young boy to his demonic fate? Or maybe the story of a crotchety old witch with a score to settle against the town she lives in is more to your liking – what evil will the seemingly harmless town-crazy call upon when faced with an ultimatum? If you’re looking for wicked people with supernatural abilities doing wicked things, this is the collection for you!

Available on Amazon!

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Kim Richards @Kim_Richards @Darc_Nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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His Master’s Voice
by Kim Richards 

Nip remembered his father taking him down to the museum one summer. They walked among displays of varied and aged machines. They passed mechanical typewriters and a treadle sewing machine. His dad stopped before an old gramophone. He pointed to the metal disk atop the box and beneath the Morning Glory shaped horn.

“Wow,” Nip exclaimed. “I never knew the records were metal.”

He leaned over to peer close. Noticing a small dog sitting before an outline of a gramophone etched on the disc, he tilted his head a little and asked, “Why is there a dog on there? Is this a recording of a dog barking?”

Dad grumbled low and muttered, “It’s a logo of your namesake.”

Nip laughed. “What?”

“The dog is named Nipper; same as you.”

“You named me after a dog?”

“I just told you so.” The older man turned away and waved his arm for the boy to follow him. “Come.”

Nip never questioned the old man. He turned on his heel and followed.

Because of the memory, when Nip found a gramophone among his father’s things in the attic, it didn’t surprise him. He wondered why he never saw the old man play it. Perhaps it didn’t work.

Nip gathered the horn and the body, taking them downstairs in separate trips to avoid damaging either by accident. Once there, he set them on his kitchen table. Then he cleaned them off with a soft cloth, oiled the visible mechanical parts and affixed the horn in place.

He picked up the metal disc and held it up in his hands to look closer. The grooves circled its surface as expected. Nip marveled at how they could capture sounds and how such a tiny needle could bring them to life.

The familiar dog image was imprinted next to the center hole, along with the recording title:  His Master’s Voice.

“Hi Nipper,” he said to the little image. “Let’s see what you sound like.”

He carefully wiped down the disk and placed it on the center peg of the gramophone. Then, he grasped the handle and wound it twenty rotations. Unsure of how many turns to give it, he figured twenty worked for a first try.  He lowered the needle arm and sat back to listen.

At first the voice sounded scratchy, as if someone were sick with strep throat. Still, Nip recognized it as the voice of his father. He leaned in close, straining to understand the words. As the sound cleared a little, it sounded like poetry but in a language other than English. Something guttural and harsh he couldn’t place.

Mesmerized, Nip tilted his head as he often did when listening. Wispy red smoke streamed from his nose. His eyes widened he was unable to move any other parts of his body. The smoke thickened and darkened as it moved from his nose over to the gramophone horn, traveling deep inside.

The sound slowed as the mechanism wound down. Drowsiness replaced Nip’s fear and the smoke stopped. Then he closed his eyes forever.

.

Fiction © Copyright Kim Richards
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Nadia Corin @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Melon Head
by Nadia Corin

I don’t know why they pick on me, or call me names; what’s wrong with having stripes on your head? They have swirls, but who cares? It’s what’s inside that matters. They laugh and point, giggle and snort – they have no idea what it feels like to be treated this way.

But I’ve made a new friend that understands me. He’s different from his own kind, too. He doesn’t mind what I look like, doesn’t snicker or leer. We understand one another.

They don’t laugh any more, now that they’ve met my new friend. Because no matter his or my outside, the venom coursing through him works instantly, and he doesn’t like the way they treat me.

.

Fiction © Copyright Nadia Corin
Image courtesy of Pixabay
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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Michelle Joy Gallagher @Aphelia @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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Horizon 
by Michelle Joy Gallagher 

It should never have come to this. The longer Eliza sat at the bottom of the hill, the worse she felt. It had been 180 days since Frank… Since the ghosts from her past finally caught up with her. She went from housewife to vagabond instantly, living hand to mouth with the only possession allowed her: her father’s old car. She slept in the back seat all these weeks driving back toward her childhood home, hoping for some semblance of escape and now she had finally run out of fuel and strength. She cursed Frank, she cursed God, she cursed the old car and she cursed herself.

There were hours of nothing and more nothing. Then she sensed movement shimmering in the middle of the road some ways toward the east. She dared a glint of hope, but the form never grew nearer. A heat mirage flickering in the noon day sun and nothing more. The morning was cool but here in the open it was sweltering. She was sweating and it rolled down her face mixing with dirt. She was a wreck and the full weight of all those lonely weeks finally hit her full force. She began to sob heaving for breath until she was interrupted by a voice.

“Eliza.” Almost a low growl. Familiar and frightening.

It found her here in the middle of nowhere.

She looked up to find more nothing, just the faint glimmer on the horizon like before. She wiped her tears and stood up. Shielding her eyes she strained to see what it could be moving at the horizon.

“You should have known I wouldn’t leave your side.”

She was grasped around the waist and pulled toward the car by an invisible force. The door flung open and shut her in. She screamed and tried to get out but the door wouldn’t budge. The heat was oppressive and she gasped for breath. Soon she grew weak and lay her head against the window. She looked up, eyes losing focus as she faded out.

Frank stood there at the door, grinning down at her.

.
Fiction © Copyright Michelle Joy Gallagher
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

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More from author Michelle Joy Gallagher:
31dLq1v2KHL._SX308_BO1,204,203,200_Disremembering
Welcome to Blackhawk, Colorado. Blackhawk has always been strange. Natural disasters. Disappearances. Murders. High strangeness is a part of daily life. We can’t hope to explain it, but we can chronicle its past. Learn from it. Fear it. Blackhawk is an experimental fiction series set in a shared universe, written by a variety of talented authors. It is the brainchild of David M Brown (Plague Doctor, Modern Animals) and Carl D Smith (Moleb the Giant, Darkness Out of Carthage). Each story will contribute to an organic, evolving mythology as diverse as the voices behind its tales. For fans of True Detective, Lost Highway, Twilight Zone, and The Terror. This is Volume Two of the series and contains five stories by five different authors, each in tune with the specific strangeness Blackhawk has to offer. NOTE: For fans of Lake Lord Publishing’s prior horror titles, be warned that Blackhawk will contain content that is perhaps more disturbing and mature.

Available on Amazon!

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author Rie Sheridan Rose @RieSheridanRose @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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Do No Harm… 
by Rie Sheridan Rose 

My husband is ill.

Given his proclivities, and the resemblance he bears to my father, who was his age, I am not surprised. With his corpulence, and the drinking till almost dawn, I am merely surprised it took this long.

I did the expected thing. I rushed to the apothecary and begged for help. We have no established physician in the village. Poor Marta does what she can, but she is overworked and out of her depth. Still, she sent me here to the forest to fetch mushrooms for a poultice that should make him well.

I searched until I found what she was asking for. The slender brown mushrooms that all know are safe for all manner of things—from soup to the desired poultice. But I also found something else.

And that is what has me sitting here in the dirt weighing my options.

Beside the helpful brown mushrooms, I found some of the Dead Man’s Blood that my mother always warned me not to touch. Even the briefest contact can poison you.

So, I sit here and remember…the pain of his brutality; the taunting scoffs of my uselessness; the working from dawn till dusk without a word of thanks ever.

I wonder what life would be like if I were free…

Marta is bound by the doctor’s oath to do no harm, even if she isn’t technically a doctor. But I…I have no such stricture. And the purple is so beautiful.

Who would guess how deadly it is?

 
Fiction © Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

line_separator2More from Author Rie Sheridan Rose:

519RiHK+1wL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_

Overheard in Hell:
Dark Poetry

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.

Available on Amazon!

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Ladies of Horror Flash Project – #Horror #author K.R. Morrison @KRMorrison2 @darc_nina #LoH #fiction

Posted on January 29, 2023 by Ladies of Horror

The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

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Quentin
by K.R. Morrison .

She hummed The Tune as she tidied her sitting room. As she waltzed, thinking of HIM in her arms, her glance went to the gramophone sitting on a small table by her favorite chair.

She hadn’t even considered going to the auction, but something had compelled her to attend, and she was forever grateful to whatever powers had convinced her to go.

For there it sat—the very gramophone that HE had listened to—the poor, cursed soul who had haunted her dreams ever since she was a girl. That television soap opera—better than any that had gone before or would ever follow after.

She had paid far more than her meager allowance could afford, but she felt as if she had had no choice. The instrument had been calling to her, in a way.

She fluttered down into her chair, remembering the times she had stolen over to her neighbors’ house to watch the ongoing drama of this show, especially the episodes concerning the drop-dead gorgeous man who had become one of the cursed inhuman—a werewolf.

Oh, how she had wished for a chance to comfort him, to help him rise above the ignominy that had fallen upon him!

The music grew in her mind, blocking out everything else, until she fell asleep humming to herself.

After a most peaceful sleep, she sat blissfully in her chair with her eyes closed, thinking back on her dreams.

It wasn’t long before her senses woke, making her realize that something wasn’t quite right.

First of all, it was now nighttime, from what she could see through the windows…

…which were not hers!

She sat bolt upright and looked around, alarm in her heart.

This was not her room! This room was appointed entirely in Victorian furniture and decorations. Incredibly enough, it looked like one of the sets in the TV show she had fallen in love with all those many years ago.

She heard a stirring to her left, and chanced a look in that direction.

That glance immediately became a full-on stare. For, incredibly, there was another presence in the room!

It was…HIM! There he sat, in a chair that did not belong to her, in a room she had never been in.

But that look in his eyes! She remembered that agony, as he fought to quell his cursed needs.

His eyes caught hers, and she fell into that glance, that soulful, agonized glance…

At that same moment, the full moon broke through the clouds outside the window…

 
Fiction © Copyright K.R. Morrison
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

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More from K.R. Morrison:

Enoch’s Return: Pride’s Downfall Book 4

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.

Available on Amazon!

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