Challenge #7

The challenge for this week is Haunted House! We look forward to any fan submissions we get, and we hope you are looking forward to our stuff as well! See you on Wednesday!

Fan Friday

As the snow crunched under her feet she reached for her buzzing cell phone. It was the heartbeat vibration so she knew it was Cherry. She flipped open the screen to a bold LOL. It was the third one from her, must be a bad night. They'd been texting for hours now, which was their usual when one of them (usually Cherry) needed to vent. Alice's cell buzzed again alerting her to another Cherry text." You know I love you right" Alice looked at the screen for a second before typing out "of course I do. Just like you know I love you" she didn't like this not one bit something was definitely not right with Cherry. The next time the phone buzzed she knew she was right and her stomach plunged to her feet. Alice clutched her phone and ran. She ran as fast as she could the twenty six blocks to Cherry's front door. She didn't even bother to knock just ran in and down the hall to Cherry's door which again she went right through. She burst into tears the moment she saw her on the floor. Her bare arms and legs were covered in blood. Alice slid to her and knocking the razor out of her hand cradled her against her chest. Looking frantically around the room she found a few socks and quickly tied them around the cuts that were bleeding the most. "What the hell!" Alice sobbed. Cherry looked up and with her last bit of effort mouthed "I'm sorry babe". Her head fell back as the last sparkle of light left her eyes. "NO!!!!" Alice screamed through her sobs as she shook Cherry's now lifeless body. The police entered the room a few seconds later. Apparently someone saw her rush in then heard the screams and called the cops. It took three of them to get Alice away from the body. She felt numb almost as if she was the one not living anymore. A few hours later after the coroner had come and the police had everything taken care of. "Excuse me miss, is this yours?" She glanced to see her cell phone in his outstretched hand. She must have dropped in as she ran in. She nodded and reached to take it. Her hands where blood stained and as she took the phone she jolted outside and threw up over the side of the balcony. The snow began to fall again and she could hear people in the distance. As cheers of a happy new year rang out Cherry's last message burned brightly on the screen "sometimes love isn't enough".

-DS

Snow White

            Isabel drove through the night with the snow falling like powdered sugar through a colander. The radio was playing something the sounded like Silent Night, but with the static it sounded like a ghost trying to talk its way through to the other side. Isabel was bundled up, red knit scarf wrapped around her face and a ratty green wool jacket buttoned all the way up to her neck and down to her knees. Her brown wool stockings and brown knee high boots doing their best to keep her legs warm since she didn’t think she would need to wrap her legs in a blanket as she drove. She thought the heater would have lasted a little longer than half a mile on her three mile drive.

            Her brother had gotten out of prison and had made Christmas quite the to-do once he had walked into the door of their mom’s cottage. It was always rare when he was around, and when he was it was like spotting Waldo after looking for twenty god damned minutes. Something special had to be done to mark the occasion and it was always something big. Of course Isabel was pissed about this. She was the good one, she thought she should get some freaking praise. But all she got was a, ‘you two broke up again?! God, Issie! Get your shit together and just marry him! No one else is gonna live with your bull crap.”

            Even her brother laughed at Isabel’s misfortune. It wasn’t like it happened all the time. And it’s not like it was always the same guy, just always the same ending. Her mom and brother didn’t even bother asking who she was dating, just told her to marry the guy before he figured out she was a loser. And she felt like a loser too.

            Isabel had been working five years at a thrift store in Winnemucca and couldn’t seem to find a job anywhere else. She even looked out of the city and out of the state and couldn’t find shit to do. She loved her job, she did, but she didn’t love the looks people gave her and the things people said about her. It wasn’t all bad stuff, just stuff that made you feel down and want more out of life. Things that made you think that you could be doing something greater if the right chance came along.

            Driving through the snow, Isabel wondered if it would be a good idea to even go back home. She could just drive for miles until she ran out of gas and live on the road. She could go on an adventure and see what life could give her. And as she zoned out, dreaming of being a land pirate and driving through the forty-eight states, a tall white beast raced in front of her car and was hit. Isabel’s head smashed against the steering wheel and her foot kicked for the break and her car flew up and over the creature. Her brown’s meeting its blue’s for a millisecond before the car landed on its back and her head cracked against the ceiling of the car.

            Two days went by before anyone came across Isabel’s car. The road she had taken was one that normal people would never take during a snow storm if they valued their lives. The snow covered most of the car, covering the tracks that the creature had left when it carried the ragdoll of a woman back to its den. The police, of course, after looking at the amount of blood in the car and seeing the way the door was ripped open declared that Isabel had died from a wild animal attack. But they won’t know the truth. They won’t know that she is now something greater.

Taken Down For Editing

Challenge: write a story based on Winter
Feather's story has been taken down for editing

Challenge #6

This week the challenge is Winter! We will be writing about this season, and you can do something for this week too for Fan Friday! Thanks to Dani, who submitted for the Fall Challenge! See you all Wednesday!

FAN FRIDAY SUBMISSION

 Autumn Autumn

"Hey, don't leave me ok. I can't do this without you. I love you." she faintly heard his voice plead as the rhythm of the machine beside her suddenly shot up. The last thing she saw before her world went black was his grey eyes and a single tear streaming down his face. The light in her world turned on faintly and the memory of the first time they met rolled in like a movie reel.

"Fall and Autumn one in the same,this poem will not get me fame," she watched as the stranger on the stage began. She could always tell the newbies. "But i love this season, and here is the reason. The leaves that crunch and the treats you munch," Ellie looked around at the club and saw a few listeners smiling while others rolled their eyes at the simplistic poem. ‘Supercilious bastards’ she thought to herself and turned her attention back to the tall dark-headed man on the stage. He paused a second to push his Clark Kent looking glasses up his nose. "The cuddly nights, the orange and yellow sights. But the part I cherish the most, and the cause of this toast. Is as sweet as the coo of a dove and it being with the ones you love." He tipped his head then quickly scurried off the stage to a group of people in the audience who were now clapping and whistling merrily. Ellie smiled when he happen to look over at her then watched as his friends corralled him over to the bar. As performer after performer went on she could feel herself being watched. "Ellie Duncan?" she heard her name and turned quickly to find the man from before standing next to her. "Um you don't know me but I’m Cassidy O'Kelley’s brother Dimitri." he pointed over his shoulder at a blonde at the bar that she recognized as her old college roommate Cassidy.

"I always thought she was joking about your name. Please sit down, it’s nice to meet you." she gestured Cassidy to come over as well but the leggy girl just shook her head and winked. Still up to your matchmaking ways Ellie said to her telepathically before returning her attention to the man now seated in front of her. After some small talk and ordering them both a drink she asked "So was tonight your first reading?" he blushed slightly and took a swig of his whiskey sour.

"Yeah my sister and a bunch of her friends are convinced that I haven't lived fully enough and with the whole end of the world thing they dragged me out here to make me live I guess. And while I'm not sure the end of the world stuff is true I fear they may have a point about my lack of an exciting life." He shrugged. A few more drinks in and the two were laughing and talking like they'd known each other for years. Suddenly Dimitri's hand found its way to Ellie's and it didn't occur to her to mind. "You wanna get out of here?" he asked. After a moment of contemplation she smiled and nodded. A look of shock crossed his face.

"I decided I need to live a little too."

"Hey sweetheart! Oh thank god." Slowly her eyes fluttered open and the feeling flooded back. Her whole body hurt, from her head to her toes. Dimitri stood beside the bed holding her hand just as he had been doing when she went out. He leaned over and kissed her gently. "I got someone who wants to meet you and he's been waiting a week."  He smiled brightly as he went to the other side of the room to a tall plastic bassinet and bent to pick up a blue bundle.

"Hey Caleb this is your mommy." he cooed down at the baby as he place him in Ellie's waiting arms. Her heart filled with joy and love as she held her baby boy for the first time. A tear fell from her eyes as she looked from the baby to Dimitri.

"Thank you for coming to that bar and thank you even more for still being there the next morning. But most of all thank you for being with me every day after that especially after we found out about this little Autumn flower. I love you Dimitri." he kissed her again and then their son before whispering.

"Well the best things happen in Autumn."

-DS

Lights Out

            “I don’t like it here, Mum,” Sally said to her mother as she clenched her mother’s cold hand in her own tiny ones. “It’s cold and no one is moving.” Her mother, Anya, looked out into the forest with glossy eyes. Fall had come, and with it, The Dying. Her daughter didn’t understand what this meant, she was too young to know. It would be years before she understood this tradition, of staring at The Dying as they pass. Years before she understood why they were breathing in their essences and life forces. Why they were singling out the ones who were close to being fully dead, as they were, and watching over them until they joined their ranks.

            Anya held a thin branch like finger to her lips, hushing her child. There were a few other children there, clinging to their parents robes. Some elder siblings made fun of the younger siblings, making the wind howl. Soon, The Dying would come and pass through this place, as they did every year for their rituals. Every creature had a ritual to perform, whether they realized it or not.

            Hanging lights, making a feast one day of the year, exchanging gifts like flowers or sweets to loved ones, shedding the blood of virgins, having mass orgies, fattening oneself to sleep through troubling times, these are all rituals that creatures have. Some of these are no longer kept, some have been replaced, but each creature has a ritual, something they do every year on the same day. And this is our ritual.

            “Mum, it’s cold,” Sally rasped out through her fingers.

            “I know, dove. It will get colder soon enough. Just wait, it won’t be long now.”

            A few minutes later, lights were swaying in front of them. Up and down, side to side, they were some new fangled invention that The Dying had come up with to keep the darkness at bay. Sally tightened her grip on her mother’s hand, held her breath, and closed her eyes. And as The Dying passed, Sally felt warmth. Anya felt it too, but she did not close her eyes or hold her breath. Anya breathed in and watched The Dying pass. She could see them glow, fainter than their lights because they were not healthy newborns. Only The Dying newborns are as bright as the sun on a summer’s day.

            But not these ones. These ones were close to their ends. These ones could drop under the right conditions. But it’s not the job of Anya and her kin. As The Dying pass, Anya and her kin look for the ones who are as dim as the stars in the polluted night sky. They are hard to find because The Dying travel in packs. Some come two at a time, but most are in groups of five or more. Sally’s hand tightens on Anya’s, and the little girl shakes her mother’s hand in the direction of two dim lights in the distance.

            “Cold?” Nathan asked Linda as he lifted her over a tree stump.

            “I’m fine, daddy.” Linda said as she took her father’s gloved hand in her small mitten clad ones. Linda had just gotten out of the hospital after getting hit by a drunk driver three months ago. Her mother didn’t make it and her father looked like a shadow of who he once was. He used to be a burly carpenter, now he looked like the limbs on the trees around them. She was young, about ten, turning eleven in May, and she knew her dad was pushing himself.

            It was a tradition, every year to go through Willow Woods on Halloween. It’s where her dad had scared her mom so much that she hit him with a tree branch. That’s how they first met. It’s where her dad proposed to her mom. But before she said yes, instead of kissing him, she punched him and broke his nose. Linda’s mom was the strong one, Nathan knew that, he knew he had to try and be strong for his daughter now. He knew he had to try. But he felt like such a failure.

            Linda wasn’t supposed to leave the hospital. The doctors told Nathan that there was no chance for her to survive without a liver transplant. Nathan didn’t know anyone who could donate, he kept waiting for a day when someone would walk through the doors and say that one had arrived, but it never came. Nathan knew he was compatible, for fun, him and Nora got tested to see who could have what donated to who. They even made plans for occasions like this, and they laughed about it, not thinking it would ever really happen.

            And here they were. Nathan hadn’t told Linda yet, didn’t want to worry her. He didn’t even tell her that her liver was shutting down. The docs said she had about five or six months, unless her condition worsened. He asked how much of his liver they would need, they said just a bit. But then he added up the costs, him and Linda just couldn’t afford it. He had some money saved, Nora’s parents took care of Nora’s funeral, he knew they would take care of Linda too. He just wanted his baby to live. That was all.

            After The Dying left, Anya and her kin set out to find those whom they had set their sights on. They would follow them all year, help them come to terms with what has happened to them, help them find a place of their own in this world of ghosts. Sally was sad when she watched The Dying die. She finally understood her purpose when she spoke to the little one, Linda. That girl was very brave, she was glad that no one was suffering because of her anymore. Nathan, on the other hand, was in a lot of pain until Nora spoke to him.

            Nora had become part of the Earth Tribe. She was indeed strong, held the Tree Tribes in place, helped the Water Tribes find their ways around the world, and she did what she could against the Wind Tribes that tore at the ground in rage. The Dying were now dead, ready to take their places among the spirits. Their lights were out, and with the lights gone, the spirits left to wander the world again.