I’m away today at the Hal-Con Sci-fi Convention (happening
in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) so I’m leaving you with some creepy stories,
excerpts and poems to keep you amused. I’ll be back later this evening to check
out any comments.
Here’s a scary story for you:
Margot Wants To Play
Margot tugged her mother’s skirt.
“Come play with me, Mommy.”
“I can’t right now dear, I’m making dinner. Why don’t you go read a book or watch the
TV.”
“Cause I don’t wanna watch the dumb old TV or read a dumb,
stupid book.” Margot whispered, safely out of earshot of her mother. She sighed and took her ball outside.
Across the street Mr McNally waved at her. “Hi, Margot.”
“Would you like to play with me, Mr. McNally?” She held up her ball.
“Sorry sweetie, I can’t.
Got to water my lawn.”
Margot pouted as she watched him stroll over to his garden
hose and turn on the water. She was
distracted for a few minutes by the pretty spray of water, before she moved on
down the street, idly bouncing her ball.
A few minutes later she saw her friend Dave with his
bicycle.
“Dave, do you want to play-”
“Can’t, going down to the arcade!” His shout flew past as he whizzed by on his
bike.
Margot stamped her foot.
“Nobody wants to play with me!”
Just then she saw a shiny
thing.
It stuck up from the
ground, just behind Dave’s back fence.
Strange, she didn’t see it there a minute ago.
But still, it needed to be investigated.
She tucked her ball under arm and raced to
see her treasure.
When she got there, Margot stood over it and frowned. It didn’t look like much, just a silver
stick, stuck in the dirt. Yet, it was
her stick, she knew it. Margot bent and
wrapped her chubby fingers around it.
Her hand tingled and she felt giddy as she pulled her shiny prize from
the earth. For a moment she was happy,
just for a moment the object was hers, and she held it tight.
Your name is Margot,
isn’t it?
Margot blinked and looked down at the polished item in her
hand. It sounded like it talked to her.
I did talk to you,
Margot. I want to play with you.
“You can talk? You’re a talking-” She hesitated a moment as
she wondered what to call her new toy until she remembered something her father
read to her in a story. “A talking sep-step-stepter. That’s right, a royal stepter,
and you can talk.”
Yes, Margot, I can
talk, but I’m not a sceptre. I’m inside the rod you’re holding.
“Inside?” Margot held up her treasure and took a closer
look. There did seem to be a top that might open.
That’s right Margot,
open the rod and let me out. Then we can play together.
“You’ll play with me if I let you out?”
Yes, I’ll play with
you. I like to play with little girls.
The thought of a new friend made Margot happy. “Okay.” She
twisted the lid with her little plump fingers until it popped off with a snap.
A shimmer of light flooded outward, followed by a thick, crimson smoke. Margot
dropped the rod in surprise as this cloud of colour hovered around her.
Thank you, Margot. Now
we can play.
The smoke whirled in the air, a translucent, intangible
acrobat and Margot laughed. With her pretty voice still drifting on the air,
this vaporous creature lunged, filling her open mouth, swelling down her
throat, pouring into her nose and blinding her eyes. Her laughter stopped and
Margot fell to her knees, her arms flailing, her now sightless eyes filling
with tears. She choked on her own breath and fear, her only screams the ones
that echoed in her mind. As the last of the strange mist invaded her body, her
thoughts, her world became an empty nothing...
Margot walked down an empty street, the only sound the
bouncing of her red, rubber ball. The
bright sunshine of the day had given way to the dusky gloom of nightfall, the time
when all children should be at home with their parents.
So why was this little child playing in the lane, all
alone? And why was her neighbourhood so
quiet? Where were all the adults?
Margot paused in her game, and stopped under a streetlamp;
the glow of the bulb illuminated her features. She smiled, a satisfied grin
full of secrets. It was a grin of
razor-sharp teeth, and it reached towards wide, yellow eyes and the barbed
horns on her forehead. She giggled and
bounced her ball, staring down the street into the night.
“Come play with me.”
Here’s an excerpt from Gothic Cavalcade:
The men carrying her lifted her and then deposited her body
into a glass tank resting within the stone circle. Althea didn’t resist,
couldn’t resist; her body still wouldn’t move. The cover slid into place,
enclosing her in the tank. Slowly her prison began to fill with a curious
liquid, inexplicably materialising from within the glass container. It churned
around her, not water, but a black, icy fluid, thick and sticky.
Bitter, aching cold invaded her bones as the sluice seeped
over her skin and her clothes. It oozed into her nose, mouth, and eyes until
she submerged in the viscous substance. Althea felt panic, feared she would
drown, but she found she could breathe. She inhaled sharp gasps of frigid wash
as the emulsion flowed down her throat, expanding into her lungs. It crawled
into the very fibre of her, shutting out sight and sound. It engorged every
sense in darkness and frost, marinating through her body as it permeated into
tissue and blood. She wanted to shriek, but her throat was full of fluid. She
could only jerk in the throes of frozen suffering, as her body floated in
glacial, silent isolation.
Images flickered under her eyelids, colours of deep crimson,
indigo, and amethyst, and flashes of cruel brown eyes. A voice whispered in her
memory, the words distant and indistinct, carrying the emotions of fear, anger,
and sorrow on its breath. A scream, primal and furious, howled inside her
raging for expulsion, but she stayed silent, the ferocity still locked against
the world. Her body shuddered in powerful spasms and the tank vibrated
violently. It rocked in the throes of her body’s reactions for- an eternity,
minutes, hours? She did not know.
And for last, a Halloween Poem:
All Hallows
Moon
Ascends high
Time ticks midnight
Storms
Crackle arcane
Bearing odd whispers
Wisps
Of malice
Rouse in shadows
Hunters
Haunt nightfall
Worlds stand quiet
Silent
No breath
Like a crypt
Until
A shriek
Breaks the hush
Panic
In confusion
A hopeless flight
Blood
Flows scarlet
Staining the kill
And in honour of today's short story and poem I'm including some freebie links from Smashwords:
Even the Paranormal Play Sports (a flash fiction story)
Existence (a flash fiction story)
Twisted Shorties (an anthology of stories and poems)
These three books are also available free from B&N Nook, iTunes, Kobo and Sony
And remember to visit the other CoffinHoppers, for more fun horror happenings. Check out the list and the bottom of my blog for the participants. And be sure to check out the
Coffin Hop Store for more creepy goodies.
Winner will be announced Nov 1st, following the conclusion of CoffinHop.
