writing fiction makes
it possible to kill you
more than just one time
Horror
Quest for a Good Life
I remember picking up the keys at the lawyer’s office, opening the front door, and walking in for the first time, my dog, Buster, at my side. I finally owned my own house. It was just going to be the two of us.
I had my mom look after the pup for a few days and I got my brother to help me move stuff in. My mom didn’t like the idea of me, a single woman, living alone, but it was what I wanted. I was strong enough to help my brother lift all the furniture, after all. And I had my hound.
I’d been living there for about a week before I started to get really annoyed with Buster. If he wasn’t outside trying to dig a hole under the shed, he was whining at the back door to get out there. Finally I got my brother to come over with a shovel and help me dig out whatever Buster was trying to get at.
And what do you know? Dead bodies.
So I had a choice. Contact the authorities and lose my house until they finished their investigation–it could be a year!–or drag the bodies out and rebury them so the dog couldn’t find them. I decided on the latter. Which would have been fine if they hadn’t come back to life.
Now my life is all zombies, all the time. They come in and raid my fridge in the middle of the night, I keep finding the occasional limb under my bed – Buster! – and every single morning as I’m getting in the car to go to work it’s, “Hey Julia! How ’bout them brains? When are we gonna get them yummy brains for dinner?”
All I wanted was a nice quiet life in my own house. Maybe Mom was right.
Intoxicated – #AtoZ Challenge
Scene: A drunk middle-aged man sits beside an elderly lady on a long overseas flight. She is in the window seat.
Man: I… I don’t have a problem, y’know. (tips plastic cup in her general direction)
Lady: (staring forward) Mmmhmm.
Man: My wife left me.
Lady: I’m sorry.
Man: You’re sorry. It’s my wwwife who should mbe sorry. She thinks I have n dringking problem.
Lady: Mmmhmm.
Man: You don’t b’lieve me. Why don’t you open the window n jus’ jump out.
Lady: (pushes “call attendant” button)
Man: What choo do that for? I don’t have a problem!
Attendant: (smiling) How can I help you?
Lady: I wonder if I might change seats?
Attendant: I’m sorry, Ma’am, the plane is full.
Man: Shhh…she thingks I have a problem.
Lady: (looks up pleadingly at the attendant)
Attendant: Sir, would you like to come with me?
Man: (grins) Anywhere you want, darlin’. (stands, swaying and follows her toward the front of the plane)
Five minutes passes. The attendant goes by and the lady flags her down.
Lady: I just wanted to say thank you for removing that nasty man. Where did you put him after all? I thought the plane was full.
Attendant: Oh! (laughs) That was the pilot.
Author’s Notes:
1. I had no idea where this was going. I actually made myself laugh at the end.
2. I have no plans to write Adult Content fiction pieces for this challenge, but it happens, and it’s sometimes beyond my control if I’m to remain authentic to my muse. I will place a warning in the title of those posts which fall under the AC category.
Evil – #AtoZ Challenge
when we met, i fell in love
with you immediately
your cherry red-painted lips
held me captive;
the way they slid
across your smile
and caressed your speech
though i couldn’t hear what you said
from across the room
i had to have those lips
pressed against mine
but you wouldn’t have me
would you?
your lips scorned me
and your body turned away
and i had no recourse
none at all
but to follow you home…
here in your room i hear you breathe
a staccato of sobs as i
squeeze your scarf around
your porcelain throat
and i think
(since you’d taken it off)
i’ll paint your lips once again
that glistening cherry red
so i’ll have no need to see them
the dusky blue
of your sunset moment
Author’s Notes:
1. My torture scenes go back to my Stephen King roots; reading horror was such a forbidden teenage pleasure. I have a classic love/hate relationship with my evilest characters.
2. I have no plans to write Adult Content fiction pieces for this challenge, but it happens, and it’s sometimes beyond my control if I’m to remain authentic to my muse. I will place a warning in the title of those posts which fall under the AC category.
Monster Mash – an 100-word Story
I hate the way you eat your mashed potatoes. It sets my teeth on edge when I hear your teeth hit and then scrape the spoon as you pull it back out of your mouth. Who the hell eats mashed potatoes with a spoon? You have to put your fork down just to eat your fucking mashed potatoes. By God, one of these days I’m going to pick up your steak knife and end your life with it.
“Penny for your thoughts, Darling?”
“Oh, I was just thinking about… work.”
Yeah. How much work it would take to stab you.
JusJoJan the 5th – 2016, a four-sentence, 50 word story
2016 was an extremely good year. The mansion in which I lived included a butler, a maid, three cooks and a gardener. Fortunately they lasted two months each. And every one of them was more delicious than the last.
It’s Just Jot It January! Click here and join in any time!
Gargoyle
It’s always been in me.
This blackness,
this lust for the taste of the blood of innocents,
of those with whom I fall in love
And I fall so easily.
It takes naught but the glimpse of a fair lip bitten,
‘tween teeth so small and delicate,
or the scent of a drop of milk without a tongue to lick it,
or the hitch of breath; a sob of grief and what am I to do?
I am not made of stone.
I give and I give and I give and then I take…
And then I am again left alone,
to dine upon my hopeless sorrow.
Why oh why can I not just stop
this endless circle of pain and love and misery?
Mr. Strange
Mr. Strange was the normalest person he himself knew. He shaved every morning and put on his suit and went to work as an accountant in a perfectly normal firm downtown. He drove a Lexus and he lived in a three bedroom bungalow by himself with his dog and his cat and his three fish. The bodies buried in the basement didn’t count as other people. They were corpses.
***
Miss Harper enjoyed the company of Mr. Strange very much. She was a secretary at the firm in which he worked. She lived downtown a few blocks from the company in an apartment on the fifth floor. She didn’t drive, but she had admired Mr. Strange’s Lexus and even said so once. She was hoping he would invite her out to dinner.
***
Mr. Tarvell was Mr. Strange’s boss. He always thought there was something odd about Mr. Strange, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He knew his secretary, Miss Harper, had a “thing” for Mr. Strange and he wanted to say something but he didn’t quite know how.
***
Mr. Strange’s dog wouldn’t stop trying to get into the basement. He thought about giving the dog to Miss Harper, the secretary at work. She seemed lonely. Perhaps he would invite her over.
***
Miss Harper’s first visit to Mr. Strange’s house was an event that surpassed every event that she had ever had in her life. On the outside, Mr. Strange was a kind man. Gentle, it seemed. In fact he was the normalest man she had ever had the pleasure of working with. However, they had barely started into dessert when he swooped everything off the table, the table cloth included, and crawled over to her and kissed her passionately. They never made it to the bedroom. He made love to her under the dining room table, her head banging on one of the chair legs each time he thrust into her. She took a taxi home. She couldn’t wait to see him again.
***
Mr. Tarvell noticed a strange smell on Miss Harper’s clothes the next day. It seemed, somehow, that she had gotten moldy. Like she had spent the night in the refrigerator, cuddled up to a basket of rotting strawberries. He didn’t want to say anything lest it seem rude.
***
Mr. Strange was the normalest person he himself knew. That he would soon require a bigger basement meant that he would also probably need a new job. A better paying job. A job in a town where no one knew him. Leaving his present house to the dog seemed the wisest choice he had made in quite some time.
This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. It’s only late if you insist on changing the clocks at 2am… http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-3115/
SoCS – Root
“Dig,” she thought as she shoved the spade into the ground again.
“Dig, dig, dig, dug. Doug. It’s Doug I should be digging for. To hell with this root.”
But the root had been the bane of her existence since she moved into the house. Because it was more than a root. It was a stump. The stump of a tree that had been cut down maybe a century ago. God knew what was below it – maybe there was a cemetery down there, like in Poltergeist.
Chunk, went the spade. Chunk, chunk ching!! She hit something. Getting down onto her hands and knees she dug with her fingers until she uncovered something silver. Something shiny. A treasure! Could it be that all this work had made her rich?
With renewed determination she stood and wielded the shovel once again. The silver box was small – it didn’t take much to dig around it. But it was deep, like a tiny coffin that had been buried lengthways. By the time she reached the bottom of it, Doug had come home.
“Hey asshole,” she called to him. “Can you come and help me with this?”
“Go fuck yourself,” he muttered as he marched from the car to the house. He slammed the door behind him.
“Just a little wider,” she mumbled to herself. “And he’ll fit right in.”
***
Two weeks later…
The house had been deathly quiet for so long that it seemed as though noise had given up on her. Doug had woken up while she was still filling in the hole, but she took care of that with the spade. The silver box was the final nail in his makeshift coffin – or lack thereof. It was the deciding factor. Not only did she have the means to cover up what she’d done thanks to her discovery, she wouldn’t have to share whatever was in the box with him. Or anyone else.
It took three days to pry the lid off the box and then another day to figure out what was in it. A pair of glowing orbs, like cat’s eyes lay in the bottom, which was five feet from the top. Tipping it hadn’t worked, nor had turning it upside down. Now the object sat on the table in front of her. It had climbed out on its own it seemed, after she went to bed.
The object – what could she call it? A cat-box? – refused to move from the table. It smelled like toast in the morning, a chicken sandwich at lunchtime, and a steak at dinner. But every time she made something to eat, her food would disappear. Into thin air. The only thing it didn’t touch was her coffee and her booze.
She couldn’t leave the house; she was slowly starving to death. Except.
Every day for the past seven days there had been a note on the table when she woke up in the morning. The note read: if you’re hungry, dig up Doug.
This creepy tale is brought to you by SoCS. Click here and join in! Anyone can do it! http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-1915/
Boxes
I spend all my time stepping over boxes. I’m always on the move. Packing and packing some more, stepping over boxes to get to other boxes – organizing what goes in here and which part goes in there.
The ones with the heads leak a lot.
freedigitalphotos.net
Linda G. Hill 