Friday 13 June 2014

Full Moon On Friday 13th

Here's a short snippet of a horror story to honour the full moon rise tonight, on Friday the Thirteenth:



Full Moon On Friday 13th

An odd hush settled over a particular backstreet of London, the rolling fog dancing wisps around the windowsills of closed taverns and rooming houses, and diffusing the soft glow from the gas lamps. No local denizens wandered the darkness, no flesh peddlers or their customers, no drunken wretches, no thieves, nor pickpockets. Only the moonlight ventured a presence, as it shimmered on the empty streets damp with a coating of night dew.

The silence hung, like a body from the gallows, until just past midnight when muted footsteps broke the quiet. The echoing sound grew ever louder, and mingled with panting puffs of breath, flapping leather, and the faint click of metal, as if a watch had been pulled from a pocket. A shadow flitted along the cobblestones, and a curious scratching grated across battened shutters, leaving unfathomable gouges in its wake.

Behind these shutters, inside the locked taverns and homes, the citizenry huddled, teeth on edge, swallowing bile and fear. They waited out the night, prayed to see the sunrise, as this presence, this stalker, explored, tested, hunted. Which one would be chosen tonight, they knew not, but one person would fall, one person would end as prey.

When the hunter came, someone always died…


4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for making me scared to go out on a date tonight!

A. F. Stewart said...

Just doing my job right.

Anonymous said...

Fantastic! Great imagery.

A. F. Stewart said...

Thanks, kathyree.

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