Welcome to the October Frights Blog Hop!
Keep the lights on for this Drabble Wednesday, as October
Frights brings us four more tales of ghostly phantoms…
Death Kindly Stopped
“Are you tired of running yet?”
I looked at the kindly old man sitting on the bench beside
me. Dressed in rather scruffy tweeds, he needed a good suit. “Do I know you? I
feel like I do.”
“We met once. Are you tired of running yet?”
“Was I running? I’m not out of breath.”
The edge of his mouth twitched. “Oh, but you are. Out of every
breath. Forever. That’s why I’m here.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’m
Death. Are you tired of running yet?”
I looked him in the eye. “No.”
I start running again.
~*~
Harbinger
In a nameless town, a pale flower grows at the edge of an
old cemetery.
Velvet, alabaster petals kiss olive green leaves, swaying
gently in the summer breeze. Its life spans a single day, once a year, before its
bloom expires beneath the full moon.
With mortality, its petals flutter to earth, crumbling into blood
red dust, scattering its touch among the buried dead. Summoned, shades and
spectres arise, and the once silent graveyard pulses with howls and moans, and
the rattling of bones.
In that nameless town, on this moonlit night, the dead come
back to visit the living.
~*~
The Candle in the Lantern
The candle flame in the lantern flickered, as it did each
night, shining its beacon from the tree branch where it hung. Below it the
river gurgled, flowing eternally to the vast sea, and the deep scented
wildflowers bloomed, even encompassed by the damp grey mist and coal black
night. The clearing lay hushed, the air still, the glimmering light casting
shadows over earth where few human feet willingly trod.
For the candle burned to lure the unquiet dead, its wispy
smoke a summons, a binding that restrained ethereal forms within the river
glade and far away from the living.
~*~
The Painting in the Hallway
Do you ever have that feeling? The one where you’re positive
someone is standing behind you, but no one is there? I get it all the time, in
the front hallway of my mother’s house. Whenever I stand next to that creepy
painting of my grandmother. It’s probably my imagination, like the way the
portrait’s eyes follow me as I move.
Still, I don’t like the feeling.
I don’t like the thought of being watched by someone I can’t
see.
It frightens me.
But do you know what really scares me? It’s this sensation
of someone’s hand on my shoulder.
© A. F. Stewart 2015 All Rights Reserved
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