Horror Bites #19

I have neglected my flash fiction recently, so it has felt rather good dipping a toe back into the water and writing for #HorrorBites. This week isn't gruesome. Just a bit dark and strange.

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I stood in front of the old water tower. My first day out of prison and I came here. It looked like a family home, obviously oblivious to what happened fifteen years ago . . .

Bunking off school seemed a good idea. Daring each other to go into the condemned water tower was not. We larked about, prodded a few dead pigeons before venturing up the stone stairs, passing a tattered prom dress. Nancy wore one just like it, before she went missing. I shivered. We reached the attic.

Crouching in the far corner was Billy. We all thought he’d left town months ago but it appeared he was living in the tower. His feral stare chilled my bones. Dried blood caked his pale face. A flesh stripped bone fell from his grasp.

He hissed, crouching on all fours. His leap towards us was a surprise. I fell down, my hands pushing him away. He snarled, his spit mixed with blood showering my face. I shouted for help, unable to hold him back.With a sickening thud and a crack, Joe swiped Billy with a plank. Sounding like a wounded animal, Billy yelped as he rolled across the floor.

I took the split plank, ready for Billy. He pounced again and I thrust the pointed end into his gut. He fell, writhing and gurgling. I watched until the blood stopped oozing from his gaping wound, as he lay motionless. I didn’t know what I killed that day. But I served my time and now I stood at the water tower.

The door opened and I watched a young family walk out. The dad locked the door and turned. Billy? It couldn’t be. I killed him, watched him bleed out. He stared back then smiled. He hadn’t aged at all.

What was he?

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Written for Horror Bites #19, hosted by Laura Jamez over at Office Mango

 

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Horror Bites #15

They don’t listen.

Time after time they’ve been warned of building on sacred land. But we have been ignored. Our heritage trampled. Our resting place desecrated.

Distant rumblings above us vibrate our fragile bones as rats scurry, no longer able to gnaw at our rotting flesh as we rise from eternal sleep.

Earth crumbles, our ancestral home falling around us. We are their dead. Do they not wish for peace for their dead? Was the suffering we endured through death not enough? Faint voices echo through the mound, punctuated with laughter.

Pinpricks of light seep through the once rich, organic soil; rich from blood that fed this land for centuries. Fed us. Now, the arteries have been severed, filled with cold concrete while asphalt burns.

As one, we claw our way towards the surface, their voices clearer, their smell . . . A new feeling engulfs us . . . a ravenous hunger urges us.

Guttural groans unconsciously escape our rotting lips, reverberating  around us, through us . . . above us.

The tools stop. The laughing is no more. But we hear them, their beating hearts, their blood coursing.

Pounding feet throb inches above our heads as clay falls, revealing daylight. We reach up, our arms flaying for flesh, screaming only enticing us further to rise.       

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Written for Office Mango, Horror Bites, challenge 15. Hosted by Laura Jamez  

Horror Bites #12 The Special Offer

 

  The Special Offer

Fed up with wilting plants?

  Worry no more with our new 
Miracle Fertiliser.
  100% organic ingredients. As natural as nature intended.   

       

                Alfred read the leaflet with interest, looking out upon his withered flower beds. He’d tried everything without success. The new garden centre in town was just what he needed. And it was the grand opening tonight, promising special offers along with a glass of fizz.

            When Alfred arrived, it was packed but that didn’t stop him noticing the larger than usual potted plants, the champion winning sized vegetables and beautiful, aromatic flowers; brighter, bigger and taller than anything Alfred had ever seen.

          Excitement fuelled him as he hurried around the centre, searching for the fertiliser until a shrill scream stopped him in his tracks. Everyone rushed to the source of the scream and found a woman quivering in front of a bench where an arm hung at a distorted angle.

         Silence fell.

         Fear clenched around Alfred like a fist, wanting explanation but not prepared for the answer.     

        “I guess we’ll have to buy into this,  buy a bag of fertiliser,” a man said next to Alfred. “Ask no questions.” Alfred stared back, horror etched on his face at the acceptance of such an act. “It might be our only way out,” the man said.

       “Yeah, except,” Alfred began, “all I see are very large flowers and vegetables . . . but not one bag of fertiliser for sale . . .  not one . . . anywhere in this entire place . . . Don’t you think that’s odd?”

        “But . . . you can’t mean?” the man spluttered, his face devoid of all colour. Alfred never got a chance to reply as the ceiling opened up to slicing, grinding metal, descending down, cascading the plants in a wash of crimson.

287 excluding title but including advert.  

Written for Horror Bites over at Office Mango, hosted by Laura Jamez.

Horror Bites #11 The Dance

Her fiery red dress twirled in a blaze as Miranda danced, spinning around the circle, lit only by the meekest appearance of the moon and the fire lit torches. On occasion, Miranda spun so wildly, her dress nearly caught the flame. Her bare feet bled from the rough ground but still she danced. Her olive skin glistened as her ebony hair plastered her face as her wild, dark eyes shone like black diamonds.

Finally, at the first glimpse of dawn, Miranda collapsed at the feet of a young man. Grinning madly, he cradled her in his arms as the crowd dispersed, some with relief etched over their wisened faces.

Looking anxiously up at the approaching day, Miranda knew time was short. And hunger raged deep within her.

“Come, I have a nice room,” Carlos said, trying to lift her.

“No, here,” Miranda replied, rooted to the spot. If Carlos had taken time to look upon Miranda, he would have seen her feet disappear into the earth, her legs become a brittle stem of thorns. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her mouth to his, stifling his cry as her body stiffened. Thick thorns tore through her dress, stabbing into Carlos like he was a pincushion. His blood flowed through the thorns, feeding her as she grew. Her tendrils entwined him in a vice, devouring his soft skin and flesh to a pulp. Carlos could do nothing but watch his body slowly dissolve as her hair enveloped his face, before turning into tendrils of thorns, seeking out the soft flesh inside his skull

As the sun rose, it looked down upon a parched earth where the only moisture surrounded what looked like a decaying tree stump and its branches of plump, crimson thorns.

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Written for Horror Bites hosted by http://www.officemango.com/ .

Horror Bites #5 The Gift

The old woman sat patiently at her stall at the spring fair, watching people passing her by. But she didn’t mind. She knew someone would stop and that was all she needed. Just one.

Sally was that one. She squealed with delight seeing the beautiful brooches glinting in the sun and dragged Arthur by the arm for a closer look.

   “Oh these are beautiful,” Sally sighed looking at the table of moth brooches.

    “Each one is unique,” the old woman said, “but all beautiful. I can find just the right one for you my dear.”

     “Oh please Arthur!” She spied Arthur’s reluctance. “As an early wedding gift, from you to me.”

     Arthur’s face softened and he smiled. “Which ever one you desire Sally.”

     “This one,” the old lady said before Sally had time to look at them all. “This one matches your eyes perfectly,” she said holding up an emerald studded moth set in silver. Sally took the brooch, admiring the detailed silver wings, intricate like lace.

     “I like this one,” Arthur said, holding up a gold moth studded with sapphires, so deep and dark, they almost look black.

     “No. It has to match the eyes!” she said sternly, them more softly, “Men know nothing of jewels.”

      “I want the one to match my eyes,” Sally agreed.

      The old woman pinned it to Sally’s blouse. “There you go, it really suits you my dear. If I were you, I wouldn’t ever take it off, at least not today.” Her wrinkled face creased even more into a toothless smile as Sally and Arthur walked away.

     

The old woman threw everything into and sack, slung it over her shoulder and left just as Sally’s friends were admiring her brooch. One sale was enough.

    

Back in her cabin in the deepest, thickest part of the forest, the old woman dusted off an old book before opening it up. The pages turned themselves before stopping at a page showing a picture of the brooch Sally had bought.

Muttering incomprehensible words that only the book could understand, she watched as the picture of the moth faded.

At that moment, Arthur let out an anguished cry as Sally crumpled to the ground, her clothes hanging off her now frail frame, her golden hair was now as dry as straw and fading fast to grey. He watched as the years past in seconds on Sally. Wrinkles upon wrinkles, sunken eyes, like thin skin on a skeleton before she vanished into a pile of dust.

The brooch on her blouse fluttered its wings and flew off, towards the forest as Arthur howled with grief.

The moth landed on the old woman’s tatty robes and she breathed in heavily before looking in the mirror at her young, beautiful self.

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Written for Laura Jamez' Horror Bites over at Office Mango

      

#HorrorBites Carriage Three

The train arrived on platform five. But despite the overcrowding, coach three remained empty.

   “What’s the deal with that empty coach?” Ryan asked.

   “People disappear.” Ben replied.

   “You believe that?”
   “It’s not a case of believing, it’s just not worth disproving. I mean what if it’s true?”

    “There’s only one way to find out.” The train stopped and Ryan made his way to carriage three, ignoring the pleas of Ben and commuters. He opened the door, peered around the carriage and stepped in, walking along the carriage before slumping into a seat. He laughed and waved at the worried faces staring back at him as they crammed into the rest of the train.

   The train reached it’s destination and passengers disembarked, congregating around coach three.

   “Why doesn’t he get off?” Ben asked.

   “He can’t,” the driver replied. “He belongs to carriage three now.”

   “That’s where you’re wrong,” Ryan bragged. “I’m right here,” he said, grabbing Ben’s blazer. But his hand swiped right through him.

    “What happens now?” Ben asked.

    “By the time the train pulls out, he’ll be gone.”

    “No! I’m here!” Ryan screamed, reaching out to Ben but passing right through him.

Ben watched in silence as Ryan hammered on the train doors, screaming for escape. Tears streamed down his pale face, now contorted with fear as the carriage lights dimmed before plunging the coach into black.

    The lights flickered on. Ryan saw carriage three full of people.

    “You need to get on,” a girl said, standing next to him on the platform. “You need to take your seat.” Ryan looked upon her, confused. “You’re dead Ryan. We’re all dead in carriage three and it’s our job to ride for eternity.”

    “See,” the driver said to Ben. “All gone.”

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Written for Laura Jamez' Horror Bites over at Office Mango.

    

Horror Bites Perfection

Sally held Baby Doll. “You said you couldn’t get the parts anymore and I should think about buying a new doll. Now, she’s perfect.”

   “I know, someone must’ve found some spares. It’s quite remarkable,”  said Richard, the doctor at the toy hospital, as he admired the doll. “She looks so real, her eyes . . . so familiar . . . lifelike.”  

     The doll stared back, a thin smile spreading across her mouth. Richard blinked. On opening his eyes, the doll now had her usual lifeless stare. “Anyway,” he said thrusting the doll back to Sally, “glad you’re pleased.” He walked away, closing his office door behind him, sitting at his desk. Rubbing tired eyes couldn’t rid the image of the doll.

     The computer screen opened up, drawing Richard’s attention. An image filled the screen; a kitchen, just like his. The same appliances, tiles, paint . . . it was his kitchen, last night. There was his wife, sitting at the table, her dinner untouched that he had cooked before leaving for work. The camera zoomed in, Richard choked. The doll was on the table, blooded scissors in her hands. She looked directly at the screen.

   “You told Sally to buy a new doll!” she spat as she plunged the scissors into his wife’s eye. A piercing shrill filled Richard’s ears as his wife’s eye was ripped from her socket. “ I will not be replaced!” the doll screeched  as she did the same with the other eye. Richard cried. Blood poured down his wife’s face as she sobbed, enveloped in permanent darkness. The doll placed her new blue eyes in her sockets. “Perfect fit!” she hissed. “No one will replace me! I am perfect! Except . . . Sally will love me more if I had . . . a heart!”

    “No!” Richard roared as blood splattered across the screen.

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Written for Laura Jamez and her new challenge Horror Bites over at Office Mango.com/        

     

#HorrorBites Challenge A Bag Of heads

“Weirdo,” was the usual  greeting for Sasha as she walked through the school corridors. All she wanted was for someone to call a best friend. But she was alone.

   Luckily, Sasha found a way to have friends.

   Her dolls.

   They travelled with her everywhere.

    Until the school thug, Tony, decided that today he was going to be extra mean. Not content with kicking Sasha’s bag across the hall, he decided to empty it all over the corridor. Deafening laughter followed as Sasha’s dolls tumbled out for everyone to see. Red with rage, Sasha tried to ignore the laughter as she bent to pick up her dolls but not before Tony picked one up and pulled off the head, copied by Ryan and the rest of the gang until every doll was headless. Ryan threw a head at Sasha as the gang walked off, their laughter echoing in Sasha’s ears.

    “I’m so sorry Michelle,” Sasha said softly to one of her dolls. “I’ll fix this.” She placed the dolls in her bag and left.

     Once home, Sasha fixed up her dolls. 

But the magic had gone.

     The next day in school, the halls were peaceful. Tony wasn’t one to hunt without his pack but Sasha approached him.

    “Fancy kicking my bag around today, decapitating my dolls?” She delved into her bag and pulled out a doll.

     Tony blanched.

     “This is my new doll  . . . Ryan. He makes a fine doll don’t you think? While he’s like this, I can bring him back to life but if you do this,” she pulled off the head. Tony wretched, “he’s always going to be just a doll. Shame, for Ryan . . . and you.” She threw the head back in her bag with the rest of Tony’s gang, biding her time for their leader.

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Written for Laura James' new #HorrorBites challenge over at Office Mango