Welcome to our 2018 50 Word Horror Story Halloween Contest! Here is our BIGGEST contest this year. You know how much we love Halloween, and instead of giving you promotional money, we are giving out hard cash. We’ve decided to change the monetary prize to the 50 word contest. In the past our 500 word contest would carry a promotion prize, and publication, but honestly we didn’t get the amount of submissions we wanted. This year, we want it right here on this page. We are giving out 500$ to the winner of this contest! The deadline is October 28, 2018. We will announce the winners on Halloween Night in our movie and chat. There will be a 2nd and 3rd place winner, but there is no money given for those positions.
Here are the rules of our contest
Stories:
- Must be high quality horror stories
- Must be 50 words or under
- Must be a complete story
- Have to be in before our deadline.
- Deadline is October 28, 2018
- Enter as many stories as you like!
- Post your story in the comments below.
- Scariest Story Wins
We will announce the winners in a movie chat night, like every Halloween.
What you win:
- Your story will be placed on a tile and shared on our social networks
- You will get a winning announcement post with links to your books and/or website
- You will win $500 cash.
We hope to also do a print issue this year, but no promises, we’ve had a lot of trouble with this in the past. We want your best 50 word horror story! POST THEM BELOW DO NOT SEND EMAILS.
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Exiting her cubicle at the end of her first day back from maternity leave, Lisa rushes home to see her loves. Entering the dark, her husband is slumped over on the couch, and a ghastly figure is holding her six-week-old. She screams in horror. “Shhhh. He’s sleeping.” he smiles dementedly.
Sorry. It’s called: Parting’s Sweet Sorrows
My wife woke me up last night to tell me there was an intruder in our house. She was murdered by an intruder 2 years ago. I’m staring in the mirror when my reflection suddenly smiles, turns, and walks out of the reflected door of my bedroom. I turn and am confronted by my dead wife and endless darkness.
You’re driving in the car you bought last week from that old guy down the street. He’s a strange one, but the price was right. Before long, you start to itch. You look down and hundreds of tiny spiders are making their way up your legs. You scream, swerve, then…
cool
The night is dark, you awake in a forest, how did you get there? You hear gunshots to your left you run away for miles until you reach a city, an extremely unusual city. A voice cries out to you cheerfully, “Welcome to New New York, in the year 2345.”
There were three boys walking in an abandoned mine. They were having fun until one of them got attacked by a man. When the two boys got out, the boy was gone. To this day the boys don’t know who did it, but they never told anyone about it again.
The wind was howling with the wolves, I was standing in a dark forest. Then I saw a black figure walk slowly towards me, so I ran. I ran right into a tree, the figure was hovering over me, the mask came off and there stood my brother laughing.
I peered outside and he had returned. The masked gentleman. I ran to my phone to call Dad but he stopped me in my tracks. He had a menacing grin on his face and muttered the words “not all endings are happy”. I saw a knife and everything went black.
As I sit down to eat a late night bowl of cereal, I hear my dog barking at the shade covered window. Curiously I get up to see what the deal is. I pull back the shades to discover a masked man looking back. I live on the eighth floor.
creepy
One day I was walking alone to my car. The building I work for is next to the woods. I hear a noise, thinking it’s an animal I walk closer. Then I see a guy wearing a black mask run towards me and all I can do is scream.
As I sit down to eat a late night bowl of cereal, I hear my dog barking at the shade covered window. Curiously I get up to see what the deal is. I pull back the shades to discover a masked man looking back. I live on the eighth floor.
repeat
It was a dark and foggy night when I was walking home and I had dropped something. I went to pick it up and something grabbed my hand. I looked up and it was a clown with blood running from his mouth and then I decided to…
I was walking through the woods at midnight. Suddenly the tree next to me shook. I looked up and saw a humanoid figure with red eyes and wings. It swooped down at me and I made a sprint for my car but the moth man beat me to my vehicle.
Marvelous, simply marvelous. Story arch, character development, imagery, and underlying metaphor. . . all flawless. I can well believe it took you forty-five years to finish this masterpiece. Polished to perfection! Unfortunately, the demographic has changed over the years, and there’s just no market for a book like yours anymore.
that is scary
The Overlord
Throughout the walk to the cat talon shaped ship, the sounds of rending and snapping could be heard, I saw a line of both domesticated and feral cats walking toward the ship. Most were on all fours. Others were walking, either with straightened backs or hunched over. One, with a reddened muzzle, grinned at me.
“Mum, he IS real. He creeps into my bedroom smelling of dirt and sweat.”
He’d yell at me. But no sound came from his rotting lips, only stench.
“Go away!”
I’d annoyed Mum.
Then, for the first time, I saw him somewhere other than my bedroom. Behind my Mum.
Laughing.
Professor Helena Yelton bled over Ashley Pierce’s composition paper with her red pen. The paper had so many errors, Helena’s pen went dry. She spun around. A hogtied Ashley Pierce struggled on the floor. That was okay, Helena thought. She had plenty of red ink to refill her pen.
I went to a family reunion and realized my phone is missing. I call it and someone picks up with heavy breathing and hysterical laughing. I go home to find my phone on the kitchen table, right where i left it.i live alone.
A house was burning in the village and the Mayor was speaking to the villager next to it. The Villager said that a witch burned the house. The next day the villagers put the witch in a cage and the witch became a flying demon and escaped. The End!
Late October is the time when this world and the other are so close their fingertips touch – though why ghosts and spirits should pay any attention to dates is a mystery. The dead have all the time in the world. And this is the year you will join them.
I am dead. It is peaceful but lonely. That is why on Halloween nights I poison the candy that is waiting beside the door for trick or treaters. Only a spirit has fingers intangible enough to reach between the hermetically sealed packets. Next year I’ll have the company of children.
It was dark and raining when the car died before the lonely house. My phone was as dead as my car. I had no choice but to knock and ask for help. The old woman who answered the door didn’t look that threatening, I was wrong, now I’ll never leave.
It’s called Car trouble.
It was still dark when I woke, but I had not slept so well in years. The fever was gone; feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world, I began to sit up – and my forehead encountered a satin-covered, padded lid.
“It’s a crack in the space-time continuum.”
“And the blob things pouring through it?”
“Probably have more definition in their own dimension, yes. My guess is they aren’t eating people so much as using the bodies as a crutch.”
“And to stop them we . . . ?”
“Prayer, perhaps?”
“Vampirism is a virus affecting T-cells?”
“Absolutely. Turns off aging.”
“And the cure . . .?”
“Unacceptable! Repair T-cells, and body recognizes cells past their best-before-date, killing the patient; whereas, transfusions of new cells. . .”
“So how much of my—”
“All seven litres, I’m afraid . . .”
“So, the neural network—”
“Was exposed to 240 hours of Netflix’s ‘The Witches of Wellbottom’, yes.”
“And on that basis, worked through eight quadrillion different variants of so-called ‘spells’—”
“Yes.”
“Which explains why there’s now a sixty-foot demon devouring City Hall?”
“Precisely.”
Good fun! Very clever.
The night job at the morgue seemed like a good idea, easy money, quiet work, just tag the bodies and store them. That was before the zombie plague, before the deaths, before the chaos, before the undead. Now I’m trapped between those outside and in, powers gone and my escape
It’s called a little night work.
It fell from the sky, I should have called the authorities, I shouldn’t have touched it, but it called to me in the night, bright and glowing. Now it’s growing, its green blue thorny tendrils taking over the yard, the road, the house, me. I’m trapped, but I don’t care.
It’s called a rose by any other name.
It was strange, sitting in a dentist’s chair in a costume shop. He lit incense and left to get the most realistic masks she had ever seen. She was unconscious when he administered the fatal dose. Carefully, he made an incision and began to lift her face off the bone.
The big cat lapped at the flowing liquid. Distant city sounds pushed into the narrow alley’s thick air. A slanted, strangled light fell on the scene from a room far above, reflecting four bloodied bodies. The animal licked bits of flesh from its paws and stepped out to hunt again.
Frantically slamming together wards, the apprentice warlock fought like mad to cobble together some protection. The spell had gone horribly wrong. He had only wanted to see people’s true nature. He heard talons scratching in the hallway. It was too late; the demon threw open the door. Mother crawled in.
Halloween!
We pounded beers before TP’ing the neighborhood.
Stumbling and laughing, we tossed Charmin til old Peterson’s shotgun blast sent me diving under his tree. Grabbing a low branch, I see them. Spiders! Spiny legs and glittering eyes. A moving shadow. Crawling in my mouth, on hair and skin. (Scream!)
“Little Spider on the Wall”.
After the rain, a drunkard leaves a Halloween party taking a shortcut through the woods.
He slips and falls into a pit. When he flicks his lighter, he shrieks at the figure above in the hockey mask reaching into a large sack and showers the drunk with brown recluse spiders.
“Light My Fire”
It’s a Halloween hayride, trick or treaters riding on bales of hay don’t
realize that the farmer, turned down a dirt road. He stops and gets down. A leprechaun
comes out from the shadows and ignites the hay. The farmer smacks the horse and says,
“good job son.”
gem of a cool idea, more of a spriggan or redcap though
Could we post more than one? I don’t want to be disqualified!
Yes, you can post as many as you like. Please leave a title, and if you want to be in our 50 word anthology, say so in a line or 2 at the end of your story.
He came out of sleep slowly… breasts pressed against him, hair draped over his chest, a hungry mouth sucking and kissing…….he was totally lost….. then slowly his erection faded drifting off to a peaceful death … the reason that vampires live amongst us? …THAT really IS something to die for!
True Halloween Story: Hattori Shot Dead
Hattori, a gentle Japanese exchange student visiting US, went with his American brother to a Halloween party, accidentally approaching the wrong house. The owners panicked, brandishing a gun, yelled “Freeze!” Hattori, hearing “Please,” stepped forward. Appearing as an aggressor, he was shot dead. Every Halloween Hattori retells this true story.
“It’s 1888 All Over Again”
It’s a dark, foggy, drizzly, night in Whitechapel. The woman had been paid. Now walking home she hears footsteps. He pulls out his scalpel, he’s done this before. She tries to scream, he slits her throat and disembowels her. He admires his handiwork and smiles. Like father, like grandson.
“FACING MOTHER”
Her son came in from the cold dead night.
“Where’ve you been Dru”?
“I’ve been looking for my mother”
“Son!, I am your mother! What are you talking about!? Are you okay?!”
It glanced towards the door. She ran outside and saw her lifeless, faceless son lying on the porch.
Tonight insticts rule.
Tomorrow he will return to his office.
Tonight he hunts.
He slips into her window,
Prowls in the darkness of the room.
Her soft breath excites him.
He pounces.
Blood oozes as teeth pierce her soft neck
She screams
Human teeth tear human flesh
He feasts.
We Will be in Hell Together
The smell of kerosene emanates from the darkened house, Halloween is over.
She had fixed her boyfriend a mickey tied him to a chair and doused him with kerosene.
A few slaps to arouse him. As he kicks the can of kerosene into the electric space heater,
yells, “flame on!”
A miracle doctors agreed, her husband back from the dead. But his eyes were flat, his touch reptilian. He smelled of smoke, sweat, and sulfur. She prodded. “Did you see a light?”
He just smiled.
From dead to released in days. Tonight she’d sleep with an animated corpse. Or something worse.
I could’ve sworn I left my keys right here. But they’re gone. So I have to walk to work. In the beautiful sunny morning light, I glance at the store windows, but I do not see my reflection. Then I see the tow truck and my totaled car go by.
cool
I know we didn’t say so in the rules, and you will not be disqualified….but please leave a title. It’s helps a bunch and DOES NOT COUNT in the word count.
Also, you can enter as many times as you like.
If you want to be in our 50 word anthology, please say so in a line or 2.
Lastly, I’m having so much fun reading these. Honestly you are making my Halloween season so fun! Happy Halloween.
this was listed in several posts of yours though – aren’t people reading all of them?
Mirror, Mirror
The breeze off Lake Erie makes it colder. Another ice fisherman wants to fish, I just say, “okay.” Later, he tases, cuffs, and with a noose around my neck pushes me into the icy water. I bob to the surface to see my evil twin pulling off a fake beard.
Human Chandeliers
Do you know how it feels to see your left eyeball dangling before your face? That is what I see, hanging limp from the ceiling. There are others. Countless. Maimed. Petrified puppets barely breathing. The butcher slices my stomach. Gravity does the rest. We are his masterpiece. His human chandeliers.
I love it!
That’s Not Me
“Is that me?”
She stared into the kitchen, bewildered. The body was hers, but what lived within was otherworldly. Its soulless eyes found her. She reached for the knife but could not grab it. She was like mist. A venomous smile appeared. She stared helplessly at her stolen body.
“The skin tones in your portraits are so lifelike. What’s your secret?”
“It’s all thanks to Egyptian Brown.”
“Who’s ‘Egyptian Brown?’ Your muse?”
“Egyptian Brown is my own paint blend based on a discontinued classical recipe. I turn my subjects into mummies then grind them into dust for the paint.”
Absolution
“Don’t tell anyone, it’s our secret,” her father would say before tiptoeing away. Fervent prayers for scalding water to cleanse her defiled body went unanswered. Damp footprints recorded the undetected journey to her parents’ bedside. Indecision resolved. Motionless, revolver against her moist body. the gunshot shattered their existence.
entry for 50 words or less Halloween horror contest
She woke up, hands bloodied, arms scratched. She thought it was only a dream. Laney tried to scream but choked. She reached into her mouth and removed it. It tumbled onto her lap, blood and tears on the bird’s matted feathers, its lifeless eye laughing at her. It had won.
The eyes
I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t play hide and seek. I couldn’t pray. I couldn’t make a wish and blow out my candles. No one believed me. After all children make up stuff all the time. I couldn’t run. There was nowhere to run to. Because every time I closed my eyes I found it there, watching me.
The Visitor
“Jason, Lisa’s here.”
Linda studied her son’s girlfriend, as she stumbled into the foyer, noting her paler than normal complexion. :”Are you okay?”
Before Lisa could answer, Jason burst into the room, tears running down his cheeks. “I just got a text from Lisa’s dad. Mom, she’s dead.”
Entry for anthology
creepy
The Divorce
Forty-one, no? Forty-two…stop counting the shovels of dirt. No one’s coming to stop him. Now he’s tapping the dirt? He’s done? That was quick; he’s probably already laying sod over the grave. My air will be gone soon. If there’s a heaven Father, I beg you to take me now.
She went running after dark. The park emptied and fell quiet except for distant traffic. Her headlight swayed, and she panted with every step. She stopped at a crossroad. All paths led into tunnels of trees, canopies blocking the sky. No dog-walkers or couples. Just forest, endless in all directions.
For months, my sister kept looking at me through the mirror. She even talked to me that way when no one’s home. One day, I tattled on her to Papa.
“Why the hell do you keep looking into that blasted mirror?” Papa shouted.
“Miya.”
“She’s dead, Mira.”
Oh.
Hopeless
“I own you,” a terrifying voice rasped in the darkness of a blind alley I’d been chased into. A monstrous dark presence slithered toward me…taunting me. “You are mine. No one will hear your screams as I inflict my will on your body. And I’ll be in no hurry!”
He sat and felt comfortable, as a fat man, in a restaurant for the first time ever.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he realised everybody was looking at him.
He figured it was his paranoia.
He didn’t comprehend he was dinner until he felt the first bite.
“But I love you.”
Twisting, naked, shaking; heart splatters through own chest. Down stomache.
Disgust glistens his fearful eyes.
“Stop running. I love you.”
My hands on his neck, nails in his veins, blood on my kiss. Taking… taking… gone.
I turn to now fleeing son.
“But I love you.”
I hated dreams.
They would always take me to that old creepy room with a woman standing with her back to me.
I hated waking up even more.
I knew she was there standing by my bedside…. staring at me.
It’s cold… and dark.
I hate cold and dark.
That’s the worst thing about dying in the mountains you know…
You have to stay there for an eternity..
Forever cold and in the dark.
Alone.
My wife Susan had an affair with the minister of our church. So I invited him to go deep sea fishing on my boat and drove my fishing knife into his gut. I felt satisfied each time I removed a body part. The sharks always enjoy an easy meal.
WHEN DEATH CALLS
You wake up in the dark not knowing where you are. Only a cold, melancholy silence fills the void and then death turns away and drifts back into the shadows…
I am happy for you to include this item in your anthology.
“You are my forty-second attempt,” he said, peering over me with maniacally wide eyes, as I lay strapped to the gurney. I frantically surveyed the room, searching for clues, anything that would give away my location. “The others just couldn’t survive the transformation,” he stated flatly, holding the syringe aloft.
I wake in darkness and yawn. I don’t remember buying a satin pillow. The dream was deep and long. Organ music. Mumbled voices. A sadness so deep, I wanted to remain in the dream. I start to rise. but bang my head. I am enclosed in a box. A coffin.
I rip her eyeball right out of her skull. I go after the other one. Like a half-done egg, it bursts, mud-red, veiny, yellow and thick.
“Here’s looking at you, Mom!”
She’s in shock. I’m late for my archery lesson. But with four eyes I’m sure to hit the target!
Ygor asked for a raise. A raise from the dead? I severed his carotid, drank his fluids, flung him onto the highest rafter in the basement. Happy with your raise, ungrateful pup? My cape’s smoking hot! Ygor, Ygor, get me to my coffin bed! All is forgiven.
“BFF? You are a YoYo!”
“I’ve had enough! You make plans, then cancel, say, call back later, never happens.”
She ties and gags Duncan to a chair,sets laptop and speakers for an old time phone ringing and her non-stop alarm clock. She slams the closet door, puts in earbuds, smiles wickedly, takes a nap.
I can see his, sick, twisted smile as he pushes the latter out from under my feet. I can hear his maniacal laughter as he cackles with glee. I can feel the crack of my spine as my body collapses onto the floor. That is the last thing I remember.
He smiles. No. Smile isn’t the right word. He bares every incisor that tore my parents limb from limb, ecstacy dripping from his pores. He laps up their blood greedily, bathes in it, gnawing bones and slurping bile. He faces me. He smashes the mirror. We continue devouring our feast.
Newborn
It had been a difficult pregnancy and an exhausting labor, but when a healthy baby boy was placed on his mother’s chest the delivery room attendants’ bust into jubilant cheers. Moments later, in a deep voice that vibrated against the walls, the newborn screamed, “Let me out of here!”
for 50 words or less horror stories
I enter the hospital.
I see the cradle.
My destiny is before me. I will save millions.
I fire my handgun, and newborn’s cries cease. Brains cover the other infants.
I reread the name on the cradle.
Artur Hitler?!?!?
I killed the wrong child. I reload. I am the monster.
The little lamb prances by
The heartless hunter strikes
The little lamb starts to cry
The hunter sharpens spikes.
The hunter shishkabobs the lamb
The lamb has breathed his last
The hunter covers him with jam
The lamb, a flavor blast.
My brother was suspicious.
But man, was he delicious.
The Quality Of
Crickets fall apart before they die. She’d find one fluttering, one bent leg severed. What was the right thing–leave it alone or stomp out its misery? Then her diagnosis came–assuredly finite yet painfully prolonged. Each morning she felt for her legs and waited for the shoe to drop.
My work may be anthologized.
“I loved you…” ; “I loved you…”
“Death by kitchen knife? Of all things.”
“But she told you here name was…”
“Who are you?”
“About the tenth boyfriend she killed.”
“Again, her name is…”
“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”
I think he said her name was…
They dared me but I’m no scaredy-cat. I rang the bell, held out my bag. She said trick-or-treat before I could open my mouth. Snip. Right in the bag. I screamed and ran, my robot suit tearing apart. I must’ve been her fourth caller – she still had six fingers left.
Hide. But, let us play hide and seek my way. I am coming for you. You can hide, but I will find you. I do not play games, and lose. Your luck ran out. At the end of this game someone will find your body. Your soul I shall seek.
I woke afraid, knowing it would be there, lingering just inside the bedroom door. A small thing, just a child really, but not a child. It darted down the hall and disappeared, leaving behind a single patent leather shoe and a tattered doll whose fingers curled and beckoned me follow.
The crows have been pecking at the window for fifteen minutes. Virginia hurriedly glances up from Shirley’s body to see how many more have come – at least a dozen. Something’s entrails dangling from its beak, one of the birds pecks hard enough to shatter glass. The others caw and wait.
“A Murder Of”
‘Are you alone?’ A text from Unknown Number. Dismissing it, I went back to TV. I was alone on Halloween night, so I flicked on every light I could find. Seconds later, all light was gone. “Still alone?” My heart jumped as a window shattered by the front door.
Lost, lost they are, to that gruesome hill of decay. Those pitiful little children with legs too short, and feet too slow. We watched as they died. Days it took for the final moans to subside. But this is how we survive. This is our town’s yearly sacrifice.
They warned me, told me tales to scare me away. But the well-adjusted never listen. We don’t understand the brokenness of the world. So, I hear her song, I wander near, and kiss her sweet. And now I know, for I have seen. Heaven’s a lie. Only emptiness here resides.
Parents Be Warned: Do Not Fall Asleep. Do not be lured into dreams by music’s sweet chords, lest your windows be locked, and your doors be barred. For fear, a Pied Piper wanders here. Tie up your children, plug up your ears, his melody makes young ones disappear.
Scrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee. You may have been hearing things, but your imagination needs no invitation to show you the hiding places in your lonely, dark, creaky apartment. Your hair stands on end. You hold your breath, listening. Silence, but the moist warmth on your neck turns you to a statue.
First the edges, a little pinch! Just treat it like a bandage, this luxurious face mask. A treatment from the dark jungles of Panama. But after a hard yank of the rubber, I screamed. The flash of muscle and bone were the last I saw before the darkness took over.
IT
It began stalking me in dreams as a child; long slimy arms, a mouth filled with rotten teeth and blazing red eyes sunk deep into skull sockets. Terrified, I’d awaken sweating and shaking uncontrollably.
“Not yet,” it had wheezed. “Others must be consumed first. I’m saving you for later feasts.”
“DingDong, your new mattress is here! Expecting old Freddy?”
“You know the old one is full of holes.”
“You got yourself a replacement?”
Over there I pointed.
Her foot caused him to trip straight in one of those holes.
News report – Man falls to his death. Nothing else to report.
The Headache
“Oh, you found my shoes.” She hugged the plastic bag.
“Look at them” he said.
She did. Her shoes – filled with congealed blood. She touched her forehead where the pain was at its worst. The crispness of something dried and the sharpness of jutting bone made her cry.
“I won’t kill you, son, but you’ll sure as hell wish I had.”
As Frank tried to remember why O’Leary had said that, his hand moved toward his aching head, and stopped. He felt around the enclosure, trying to identify what he was touching.
Satin.
He began to scream.
Shelly wakes smelling wet fur. The stars swim into focus high above. There was an animal, swerving, the tree. Then?
She senses movement and there is a strange painful pressure on her foot. Then a jerking pull and grit bites into her back as she starts sliding across the asphalt.
Sorry…
Title is “Beast”
Red means hot. I remember Mommy’s words as she cooks. Her sleeve hangs near the red. She doesn’t see it take her sleeve. She screams—waves her arm to shake free—but the red jumps to her hair. She falls to the ground.
I sit alone in my high chair.
He’s head of a criminal gang,driving home alone, he thinks. Eyrie feelingcreeps over him, his hair tingles.A tap on his shoulder. The voice of a dead man”You destroyed my family”.Twists round.A splash of petrol, glue is spreading over his seat belt clasp. A match strikes.
Coffin Mom
I know it’s not cool for your mom to visit you without knocking, but sometimes I’ve got to check on my baby boy. You’ve been so closed off to me lately. It’s hard for me to even get your door open, but a crowbar and a shovel will help.
THE WARNING
Don’t dare laugh when a hearse drives by
or I’ll make sure you’re next to die!
I’ll cut your throat with a carving knife
or strangle you to end your life.
You won’t see me ’til it’s too late
and I have struck to seal your fate.
So be warned.
Celebrity Dead
You dance to Elvis all night long, picking up moves from Michael Jackson. Prince beams at you from the background as you waltz towards Marilyn Monroe. Somewhere, our first cat wails. At least I know you’re happier there than you were down here.
THE CONTRACT
The letter arrived with its chilling message and no return address.
FYI only: I’ve been hired to kill you in as grotesque a manner as is conceivable. Since I’ve never met you, consider this notice a matter of professional courtesy for pay…and I’ve never failed to fulfill my contracts.
Most zombies are recruited, but Dick chose to become a disembodied flesh-eating creature of the Dark. As an apprentice zombie, Dick must find children under the age of seven to victimize. Jane, dressed as Snow White, was his first delectable delight. Run, Jane, run. Slash, Dick, slash!
I was propped up in bed, writing. Leaning to reach for a glass of water, I suddenly froze in horrific fear. In a split second, a brilliant, fiery mass appeared, lunging towards my face. A horned Devil’s face formed, only inches from me. Gasping, I turned away, it disappeared.
Last Look
He died in a fiery wreck. They say flames and twisted metal took half his face. No open casket here, no lingering last look. I turn to leave, longing to see him one more time. And I do. In the corner. Grinning. Winking at me with his one good eye.
Hooves thundered past. Men with rope. Hunting her. She clutched shadows, dug wood, bled.
Truth didn’t matter. Missus seen Parris using her. Woods fifty yards away.
She fled:
fifty
forty
twenty
Trees reaching with sharp claws.
Safety.
A warm trickle down her neck. Breath.
“Gotcha, Tituba.”
She spun and vanished.
“Hush, Love. Just a storm. Mommy’s here. Go back to sleep.
Calmer already. Listen: pitter-patter, pitter-patter. Isn’t that soothing?
Hear that? Daddy’s home!
Hello?
Guess not. Soon, Love.
You wet? Hungry? Here, Love. Why won’t you latch?
Sweetie, it’s okay, we’re okay. Daddy’s coming home.”
“No.
He ain’t.”
Water caresses my lower lip. Raindrops splatter my upturned face. No one hears my screams; I can only croak now anyway. Hunger. Cold. Pain. It’s been hours, maybe days. If only my legs weren’t broken. The water has reached my nose. If only I hadn’t fallen in the old well.