55 Word Challenge - Bridge

This weeks 55 Word Challenge had one photo I couldn't miss. I have a thing for bridge photos and this one was no exception.

Annabelle looked over her shoulder; they’d be in sight soon. She looked at the bridge, the idea of crossing it terrified her, but she knew she had to if she wanted to live. It swung as she stepped onto it, she swallowed her fear and ran. It was either that or face her own death.

55 words

If you want more bridge stories I've written, try these.

Daily Picspiration - Interdimensioning Part 2

The next set of photos for my Daily Picspiration entry inspired me to continue from my last piece, but I struggled with it, with the point of it, and I can't decide as yet whether to carry on, although the next set might be insisting on it, although they do offer some other spookier tales. I sort of feel that I must finish this little serial too, even if it will just be one last part.

This piece used both pictures. I hope you enjoy it. 


You can read 'InterDimensioning' here.

Five Sentence Fiction - Doors

I've been captivated by this weeks Five Sentence Fiction, but by the prompt word rather than the picture, which is rare for me, as I tend to combine both. This is what it gave me.

She thumped her fist against the rock face, frustrated that it wouldn’t budge; she was tired of standing out on this precipice with nowhere to go, desperate for salvation.

She had hoped and prayed and begged for a door to appear; it didn’t matter where it led to, as long as it got her out of here, out of this empty nothingness overlooking an abyss she’d almost fallen into once already.

She could see the outline cut into the rock, but it was barely a centimetre deep.

She screamed in frustration, knowing it meant there was still work to do, that she still had to wait, that it wasn’t time yet.

She stamped her foot and chided herself; if only she’d taken a different path, there might have been a door waiting for her.

  

Horror Bites - House of Horror

I'm early this week for the Horror Bites photo prompt challenge, because the picture spoke to me immediately. Something about those type of houses conjures all sorts. This is what appeared today. It was tough to keep to the 300 word maximum.

 

She didn’t want to go there again, but they’d insisted, her hands shaking by the time they pulled up at the bottom of the embankment. When she looked up at the white weather-board house it seemed to plead its innocence, but she knew better.

Two cars pulled up behind and then someone opened her door. She spun round, eyes wide with terror at the prospect of getting out and going in there again, but a hand took her arm and she knew she had to comply.

She climbed the embankment with them surrounding her. There was no escape, not even inside her head, where the sounds she’d endured were replayed, even those made by her own body. She stumbled at the prospect of facing it again. 

As they approached the front door she pulled at the man leading her, until they were standing over the coal shoot she’d been shoved down a few terrifying days earlier. The men opened it, taking their time, ready to reveal its horrors.

The smell hit her, metallic and salty; the purist form of distilled fear. And then the sounds reached her and she pulled back, pushing against the men that held her, clawing at their hands to release her and allow her to run free from the torture chamber below, where the few that were still alive wailed their agony.

And they did, they let her go as they braced themselves for what was ahead; letting her run back to the police van. She pushed through the underbrush, oblivious to the damage it inflicted, knowing it could never cut as deep as the tools used in that cellar, and flew into the arms of a waiting social worker, where she allowed herself to be held and comforted, and reminded that her ordeal was over.

300 words

55 Word Challenge - Mean Boys

This weeks 55 Word Challenge photo prompts had lots to say. All three of them!

Thomas listened to the wall, but it refused to talk. He was going to have to ask the trees; they’d help, they’d tell him where those mean boys from next door had hidden his truck. He’d seen those boys kick their roots and break their branches - they were nasty; the trees wouldn’t cover for them.

55 Words

Star-crossed Lovers - MWBB

After skipping a week, due to my shoulder and due to the song not inspire me, last weeks Mid-Week Blues-Buster, song was not to be missed. It's a famous, some would say over-played, song, which spoke to me immediately. I already had the bones of this story down, having written it a long time ago, but this song reminded me of it, so I dusted it off and edited it up, adding and taking away, and I was surprised it seemed to have worked, eliciting a 2nd place from the judge!

The prompt song this week was:

 Your Beautiful - James Blunt

I never thought I'd see you again after you left me on the side of the street that morning and drove away.

I know you had to; I was going. I know you didn’t want me to – your call a couple of hours later made that clear, but there was no choice, my visa had ended, our time was over, we’d always known it would be. We both thought it was the end – until I found you eleven years on.

It started when I heard your voice on the other end of the phone - like an old piece of music my ears had been dying to hear for a lifetime; my trembling hands barely able to keep the sound of it against my ear.

And then I saw you. You were so easy to identify; your youth still standing out, and your searching eyes finding mine hidden behind my glasses. Our embrace was so easy, so comfortable, like we’d seen each other only days before, and conversation flowed, desperate to catch up on all those years in between.

We walked beside one another once more, up the steps to the cathedral pretending to be tourists; the thought of touching somehow dangerous now that we belonged to other people, but electricity still ran between us and distracted us from the architecture around us.

Over lunch holding eye contact was difficult at the beginning, the nakedness of our feelings easily caught in a glimpse or a smile. But by the end of we had returned to our original state; able to laugh and exchange banter with side glances and quick-witted comments. The last of which reminded me that we hadn’t forgotten how we’d been, that it was all still there; nothing had changed between us.

Yet when it was time for my second departure our embrace was awkward, you body rejecting it as though it was a step too far, and I walked onto the train missing you with the same ache I had felt eleven years before as though no time had past; your scent, your sound, your energy still enveloping me. And my eyes welled with tears of loss, of somehow missing a chance that was never quite there.

And like all those years ago I hoped to see you again although it was unlikely; we were only a gift to each other for a moment, a reminder of who we once were, stars in the night while ships passed.

Horror Bites - Reflection

The Horror Bites photo prompt for the fortnightly challenge hosted by Laura Jamez over on her site Office Mango was a bit spooky this week. This is what I came up with.

 

Emily could easily admire the lady in the reflection of the train window without being caught staring. She pretended to peer out at the world going by, but she was more interested in the woman’s face. She’d never seen so much make-up on anyone before; the caked-on foundation enhanced her old-age wrinkles, and the think black pencilled in eyebrows gave her a sinister expression with their arched peaks. 

Emily never understood why women did that, it seemed crazy to shave them off and draw them in again when you already had a perfectly good pair that grew naturally. Emily ran a finger over her own viewing them in the reflection. She wondered if they got bushier with age, although as her mum kept saying, she was only eight, she had plenty of time yet. But she couldn’t imagine shaving them off – or plucking them, like her mother did - that looked painful!

Emily glanced over her shoulder at her mother sitting next to her. She was staring out of the window too, but when she saw Emily she smiled at her and squeezed her leg. Emily smiled back before returning to the reflection.

Now she inspected the woman’s lips, all puckered up, the lipstick slightly over the line of the lips. It made her shudder; they looked all gooey. She licked her lips and looked up at the woman’s eyes, and then froze when she found her staring back.

Emily flicked her eyes back to her own reflection, noticing how wide they’d become, then took a tentative peek at her mother, who was reading a magazine and hadn’t noticed anything.

It wouldn’t be so bad, but she’d assumed the Lady couldn’t see her – being that she didn’t exist, well not in the flesh anyway, the seats opposite were unoccupied. 

299 Words