October Challenge

During the month of October - usually my favorite time of the year - I put a challenge to myself with some awesome support from my friend Meredith. The challenge for us both was to write 2-sentence horror stories, one a day for the entire month. Meredith is AMAZING and had such vivid stories. Here are my stories. 

10/1/2014

The flame flickered and struggled briefly before dying.  Her shallow breaths were soon to follow.

10/2/2014

He shrugged his shoulders as he responded to her query, “because you were beautiful and I needed to know what your heart felt like.” Barely a moan when the blade pierced her side.

10/3/2014

It was comforting to feel his embrace, like a phantom limb, like it was never taken from her. His hot breath tickled her ear as she kissed his tombstone. 

10/4/2014

As the sun rose high into the sky, Charlie could feel the maggots squirming in his body.  There was no waking up this time.

10/5/2014

She thought he was nice and handsome and rugged. Cutting his face off just reveled him to be like every other man.

10/6/2014

Something held her just below the crashing waves. It whispered, "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

10/7/2014

Coldness wrapped around her, enveloped her. It wasn’t the air that brought the chill to her spine but his cold skull in her hands.

10/8/2014

Breathless they stopped running for one a second, one moment and they heard it laughing. Laughing like it already won.

10/9/2014

He pulled that long drag from his cigarette like it had a better answer.

“See, the problem is you’re going to die and I’m going to enjoy it.”

10/10/2014

I just wanted to go out, you know, after the break up and have a good time. I’ve been here for days, blind, numb all I hear are chains dragging on the floor.

10/11/2014

The laughter, the all consuming laughter, ricocheted off the walls and rained on me like the blood of my friend being slaughtered, right next to me. Best Friends Forever.

10/12/2014

“You’re not hard to figure out,” she said. “Your blood’s red like everyone else’s.”

10/13/2014

He was gasping, clawing trying to break free when he realized he was never going to get out. With one final breath he screamed, but no one could hear him six feet under.

10/14/2014

Pain was all he could feel before he opened his eyes to the carnage of the wreck. She stood over him, “I told you not to try to leave me.”

10/15/2014

There was something clawing at her inside, she dismissed it as guilt. The agony blossomed until she heard the voices.

10/16/2014

Fingers blistered long before he stopped digging up the grave. The coffin was simple and intact and her voice came from it clear as a bell.

10/17/2014

It wasn’t the blood Vanessa needed. It was the pain.

10/18/2014

“Beg for your life,” he said with a smirk. She flashed her pearly whites as she brought her blade up to the hopeful rapists crotch, “No, you beg for yours.”

10/19/2014

There are monsters in the light. They just take human form.

10/20/2014

Sara’s fingers gracefully touched the charm on her neck. For Protection, she thought as she charged into the swirl of demons, mist, fire and brimstone.

10/21/2014

He stood there, contemplating, for the briefest moment then The Grin possessed his face. They both knew no one was getting out alive.

10/22/2014

Deep down to her bones she could feel the change. Her marrow cried for more death.

10/23/2014

“I thought you’d never come,” he said with a whisper of surprise. “I’ve come to kill you with all I have within me,” she said with a smile.

10/24/2014

It was a bloodbath. She arranged it 6 months in advance and only virgin blood would suffice.

10/25/2014

He clawed at the maggots he felt burrowing in his guts. Screaming he slashed open his belly and cried when there were no maggots to be found.

10/26/2014

She was long dead, gone and buried but she sat in her chair, in his house as though she had never left. He kneeled before her, put his head on her lap and then he felt the bite.

10/27/2014

Walking down the street every person he bumped into took a little bit of him. In the end, all that was left was bits of his heart.

10/28/2014

The blood poured out much faster now she felt like a child trying to hold in such an unstoppable force. “It’ll be okay,” she purred but her eyes flashed a smile.

10/29/2014

The thing to remember is not who she was but what she became, he thought, as he used her skin as a canvas.

10/30/2014

Moons rise and set on such a repetitive cycle. It only makes sense that I would feel such a repetitive cycle to cut you little by little until you stop bleeding.

10/31/2014
Dressed in only the most revealing of Halloween costumes, drunk off overly sweet mass-produced shots, Emily stumbled on the walk alone back to her apartment. When he grabbed her ankle, she didn’t even notice the fall.

The Things We Do for Love

His eyes were the color of the ocean that raged inside of him. It crashed against the sheer rock cliffs that guarded his heart. The ocean raged and tormented and swirled and laughed and never calmed. She saw all this and smiled. She didn’t know why she smiled. His eyes weren’t quite sapphires and they weren’t quite aquamarine or tanzanite. They were his and only his. They grew dark or light as the ocean allowed.

She swam in the oceans for far too long, years perhaps. Her body was raked over jagged rock, scraped, crushed, raw yet she stayed. She clung to the rock face of his heart. The waves would rip her off and she’d climb again over and over. Her fingers and toes became long spiny claws and slowly the waves were unable to rip her down. But the battle had changed her. She became black and bitter and defiant. She was a sea urchin, a rock urchin. She was stuck forever in her spot on the rock cliffs unable to climb, unable to fall. She was prickly and poisonous and even the ocean stopped paying attention to her. Eventually he stopped paying attention to her and he smiled.

If the rock walls ever came down if the wild ocean every won she would be forgotten. She would wash up a fossil, a relic, centuries later on the inviting sandy beaches of his heart. The ocean would toss her carcass in play and it would laugh.

Slowly the sea urchin began to climb. Moving an inch every so often. Slow enough the ocean never noticed. Slow enough he never noticed.  Over time, over much time, she reached the precipice. The sunlight penetrated her spines. Warmed her being and slowly she felt herself emerge. Her shell cracked her spikes turned back into fingers and toes. She had limbs and hair and breasts and in front of her was a vast desert. A barren wasteland of sun and dust, petrified stone and bleached skulls.

When she got to her feet, the ocean crashed high and hard and loud against the rocks, trying to reach her, trying to pull her back down. The ground beneath her feet shuddered and the wind blew hot and fast. The sand ripping at her face. She began to run as she ran the whole place shook. The chunk of cliff where she was standing previously cracked and fell into the furious sea. She ran until the land stopped quivering and her feet began to bleed.

The sun, the heat, the sand, the dry started to consume her. She felt her flesh grow leathery. She could only run in short bursts now along the hot barren wasteland. Unsure if the direction she was going was the right one. She could no longer see the ocean and the sun was eternal. There was no night. There was no break from the heat. Where she once thought she would drown in the ocean of his soul she now though his heart would consume every bit of moisture. She would crumble to dust and blow away with the wind. The wind would toss her back out into the ocean. Her hands and toes once again turned to claws and her skin became the color of the desert. It was all reflected in her brown scales and long tail as she scurried along the fissured surface. She began to forget anything other than to dig and scurry long the splintered, dusty shell of earth. She became lost in the blinding sun.

Her tongue flicked at her eyes, moistened them. She scurried in quick bursts, taking deep breaths in through her nose. Had she been lost for years or days as the sun beat down? There in the distance her heart thumped quick in her chest.  She zipped from under a bleached stone to the shade of a petrified lizard.  It was a molehill. She felt her senses come back to her as the rain started to fall and she ran, rejuvenated, to the mountain. A storm raged ripping up the dead dust and hurling it into the dark clouds. The ground became mud and she no longer had claws and her tail fell off with a painful snap. She was upright and laughed at the storm. He clutched his chest coughing.

The mountain loomed menacing and vile and dangerous. She sneered. Everything shook violently and compulsively and angrily. She could hear the ocean again and the whispers of the sand in the wind. She could hear the venom in their tongues.

She climbed. She climbed with passion and enthusiasm. She climbed with love and purpose. It kept her going until the cold stole the breath from her lungs. She knew she was destined to drown in the ocean and crumble to dust in the desert but now it was certain she would freeze for his heart. Yet she moved. Crawling and she felt her hair grow long. Her hands and feet became stumps hardened to hooves. On all fours, her ears grew long and curled back on themselves and she traveled up the mountain. It was endless night. It was brutal and cold. Her breath froze and her soul was forgotten. For a while, she meandered content with the fact that movement kept her warm. She wandered. Until the night began to laugh at her. The snow began to taunt her. She ran and rammed full force into the mountain repeatedly. Her anger hot and palpable. Eventually the mountain yielded. She reached the top and he stood there with eyes black as the night. She galloped to him. Feeling her horns break off sending waves of pain through her. She was on her magnificent two legs again and she ran open armed to him.

This world fragmented when she felt his embrace. She saw the ocean and desert in his eyes. The cold that whipped around them no longer touched her.

“You have to jump,” he said with a half smile.

“You have to jump with me,” she said with all seriousness.

His smile left him. “I’m not the one the heart wants.”

She looked over her shoulders. To her right a volcano, spewing hot and red. To her left the raging sea, which swallowed up the desert.

“You made it this far to me, you only have to jump,” He was desperate his eyes matched the air around them.

“You have to love yourself,” She said.

It seemed like he let out a primeval bellow but his mouth never opened. He hugged her deeply.

“We’ll jump together,” he promised.

“You jump first,” she said.

He looked at her frantically, madly, fearfully. They kissed deeply and she let go of him. As he fell, she whispered to the storm “I’m not coming.”

His body crashed into the lava and the mountain cracked, gyrated and heaved. The wind fell flat and the sky began to fall.

“The things we do for love.” She whispered to his heart as she dove gracefully into the calm ocean. She watched the world die. Sinking poetically into the sea. She swam to the edge of the ocean and let herself fall off, free.

Challenge #1

***I’ve decided that I once again can’t seem to squash my dreams of being an actual writer. Starting today for 1 month I will take a picture (either taken that day or recently) from my phone and write about it. Might be long might be short might be crap might be awesome. Who knows, let’s give it a shot.***

The Clouds Are Invading

Like fungi they overtook the mountains. Creeping slowly, quietly and once gaining a foothold they seemed to spread and grow. As the clouds rubbed themselves on the mountains THEY emerged and took over. As simple and fresh as rain they fall from the clouds. Tiny silver spiders of light. While the clouds cling the spiders work. Covering the mountains in dew or snow or rain or dust. They work, invisible and they conquer. They claim the mountain in the name of the elements until humanity demands it back, treading on their work. The clouds linger, gripping tightly to every branch and blade of grass. Fighting to reclaim its brother. Struggling with goodbyes the clouds grow on the mountains. They invade, take hold and fall in love. Until the wind and sun rip them apart.

My Feet and Me (Kids poem?)

You can always tell which toes are mine

I never paint them, they never shine.

There is hair on the big one,

Though it initiates all the fun.

My toes aren’t pretty and my feet aren’t neat

But mine tell a story, one that can’t be beat.

My feet are rough and calloused too

From running, playing, just like you.

But my feet are much different than yours,

My feet are wise and know the score,

They know how to take me quickly away

To the mountains, to the beach or just out for the day.

My toes are mine and will never be yours

I wouldn’t give them to you, not for all the money in the world.

My feet are beautiful, my feet are tanned,

They are the best in all the land.

They are great, accomplish great feats

Don’t you wish you were my feet?

Her Left Heart Foot

Her heart was beyond heavy. It was crushing. It was a stone heart; impeding the negative expansive pressure of her lungs. With each inhale it bared down a little harder. It was tearing her asunder. Ripping through ribs, intestines and arteries it wanted to fall out of her. It wanted to leave her. Instead it settled in her left foot. Unable to leave her fully, her statue of a heart resided as far away as possible. It made her walk with a limp, almost dragging her left foot behind her.

Three months had passed since she lost everything, everything you could imagine. Her parents, sister, brother, dog, goldfish, car, bicycle, clothes all burned in front of her eyes. It was a spark and then nothing. Her parents didn’t have a will or money or life insurance.

“What’s up with the limp?” asked her one friend.  A 18-year-old semi-goth, emo, confused boy named Hunter.

“It just happened,” Georgia said.

“Can you walk on it?” He asked.

“No.”

She really couldn’t it felt like it wasn’t a part of her anymore like it belonged to her stone heart and she was not privy to use it anymore. She imagined the heart was still red. Maybe it wasn’t stone maybe it was a ruby, maybe it was still something precious as opposed to something you kick when you’re bored and walking or you curse at when it hits your windshield on the highway.

Georgia sighed deeply and looked at her left leg and contemplated the usefulness of rock. Besides the biblical use to kill people it was a powerful, yet ever changing anomaly. Water over time could etch it a face. It formed mountains and canyons. It could destroy everything in its path. It was solid, reliable and strong but only for so long. It was intriguing to Georgia, who still worked her job at Dairy Queen because she still felt tied to the town her parents made their home. She worked at the Dairy Queen since she was 16 and 5 years later she viewed it the same. It was a job that afforded her very little but she never had grand dreams, in fact, she had no dreams. She never has. Not even whimsical dreams that made no sense. When she slept, she slept. When she was awake, she was awake. Her days were solid and reliable.  

Since the fire, mornings had started to become different. She’d wake startled, she’d wake exhausted. She still wasn’t dreaming but her left leg started to become stiffer. She decided to go to the doctor. Months passed and the doctors could find no reason why her leg wouldn’t work. They said it was mental, passed her along to a shrink. Out of sight out of mind. Georgia knew it was her heart. It was infecting her leg. She’d let her heart run wild and it wasn’t for love, it was for loss. At nights, before bed, after she’d brushed her teeth, she would grieve for her family. Hoping her grief would release her heart back to her. Hoping emotions could turn stone to flesh.

Waves crashing on rocks have been known to create. The ocean, daily, pushing back can change the course of rock formations. A year had passed and Georgia could use her leg again. She went to a community college to start on becoming a nurse. She got a job at a hospice. She was a bright light in some people’s dark, dark seas. She smiled a lot more and even had a dream or two. Deep within her though she felt bits of rock still floated around her heart, waiting in her pericardium. She followed a slow path, became an EMT instead of a Nurse and from there became a fire fighter. She was even a engine driver. She took a lot of slack from the men but she gave it back. She proved herself and over time she even met a man. It was the only man who had been there for her when her house burned down. It was Hunter. It was a new Hunter. Gone was the long, dyed black hair and metal tees with long sleeve fishnets. Gone were the leather spiked wrist cuffs and giant boots. When she ran into him at the grocery store, she didn’t recognize him. He went off to college. He came home in a suit and tie. She had no idea he was a blonde with eyes as green as emeralds.

They caught up over coffee and then dinner and then in the bedroom. He went back to his job in the city. He was an advertising guy. Pitching and creating. It was a good fit for him. They chatted on the phone every day. He wanted her to move to the city. She could fight fires there. It didn’t feel right to Georgia. They visited each other often but the relationship became frayed. Georgia found a loose thread and pulled it until there was nothing left. They loved each other deeply but distance became mountains and there was not enough of an ocean in Georgia to move it.

Her heart was heavy, crushingly so. She felt it changing back to stone as though her life was borrowed, on reprieve, out on bail and it was time to return, to pay her dues to not avoid the inevitable. Her belly swelled and she wondered if a good person would tell Hunter. Her stone heart rested in place. Her belly kept it still, for now. It labored her to feel its weight and each breath shocked her. She told Hunter. He rushed to see her. They argued. He demanded she move. She demanded he stay. He accused her of trapping him. She accused him of lying to her during heated moments. He blushed. She sighed. He left. She thought it was for the best.

When the baby came everything shifted. Her face had changed, her heart remained stone, but she felt stronger. Hunter came to the hospital. They named him Forest. Georgia hurt. There were complications and she had to stay in the hospital two weeks. When she got out Hunter and Georgia had their final battle.

“You take him,” she said.

“What?”

“You live in the city, you have a better job. I work long shifts and even worse schedules. I’m risking my life. He’s better with you,” her heart wasn’t in these words. It had settled in her left foot. It was rock, not even red this time. She felt there was no bringing it back.

“Come with us,” he pleaded. His eyes were begging, desperately but Georgia’s eyes were inconclusive.

“No.”

Georgia left. With her stitches, her broken body, her stone façade she ran with gusto. She ran until she bled, until she screamed, until everything caught up with her. When she fell, when she stumbled, when she no longer had the strength, she looked up at a full moon, at familiar trees, at the remains of a house. She ran home. How could she not have realized everywhere she lived was within 2 miles of home. They never did tear it down it just served as a warning to the other houses, to the neighborhood. She was in her backyard. Children had done horrible things, weird rock formations graffiti, bible quotes. Something that resembled voodoo. Georgia used the last of her strength to stand up and reach towards her home but her legs went stiff her heart went cold.

“Don’t be a chicken Billy.”

“I’m not a chicken I just don’t know why we’re doing this!”

“Bock bock bock bock bock.”

“Sammie, c’mon this is dumb. We’ve already been through the creepy burnt down Miller house.”

“Yeah and you cried and covered your eyes the whole time, Billy, like a little baby.”

“So?”

“So, you didn’t see what we saw.”

“Oh yeah? And what was that?”

“Go see for yourself.”

Billy ventured into the decayed home. Plant life had started to reclaim it. Stairs lead to a half roof where birds and spiders had gathered. He placed one foot on the stairs and it broke, trapping his foot. He screamed.

“What is it Billy? Too scared?” They yelled from outside while laughing like jackals.

“I’m stuck assholes. If you don’t help me, our parents will ask where I am!”

“Whatever, serves you right disturbing that house.” Billy’s face went blank.

“What?”

“We never went in the house Billy. We just walked you around the porch last time. Our parents taught us not to disrespect the dead.”

“Are you kidding me? What the heck is wrong with you? Why would you force me to do this then?”

“To see if you would. Bye Billy, we’ll tell your mom where to find you. You’re going to be in trouble.”

“You sons of bitches,” a phrase he heard his father use. “Get in here and help me!”

The silence grew eerie.

“Guys… GUYS! SAMMIE.”

Panic rose up into Billy’s throat like vomit. He struggled and squirmed and fought and the gashes on his left foot grew bigger. He pried and scratched at the stairs until they gave way and he was free. He limped out the back determined he could cut through the woods and avoid getting in trouble. Sammie was going to pay for this. He’d get him in trouble at school. Just you wait.

He never saw a statue in the yard before. They messed around in the yard a lot because of the woods behind it but there was never a statue. It was of a naked woman, taunt but round with hair flowing back, away from her face and shoulders. She was reaching for the house and in her left hand was what looked like a burnt match. Billy limped over, caressed the statue. He ran his fingers over thighs and arms and when he touched the match he realized it was a real match and it ignited. His eyes grew wide, his finger burned; he looked the statue in the face for the first time. The eyes were real but gray, they blinked and Billy grew stiff, his heart grew cold.