The alien in the cornfield (Halloween horror short story, Write Anything challenge)

It was a rainy afternoon, the kind that makes you put on your coat, open the door, sigh heavily and then turn back to flop down on the couch and stay there. But not for Bill. At least not this time.

The Surgeon's Assistant (A Halloween horror short story)

The Surgeon’s Assistant

Her quick feet thudded through the empty corridor. The wind howling through the broken windows could not drown out the distinct clang of metal against metal behind her as he ran his scalpel across the cracked wall.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He bellowed, bursting into hysteric laughter.

“Please let me go!” She panted, her back against the wall.

He gestured with his smoking cigar and leisurely puffed the fumes in her direction, filling the hall with a breathtaking heaviness. Lightning set a ghastly light to his blood-stained scrubs. 

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 8

Chapter 8 – Resolve

“I want to know what’s up there!”, she had hissed through clenched teeth. She just couldn’t understand why Ann didn’t want to support her theory that someone in the house attacked Julian. “Who?” She asked. “I don’t know.” She replied, acknowledging her partial defeat against her will. Why did she feel like she’d already lost the debate?

“Of course you don’t. Why and how, Eliza? Why would anyone do that, especially Henry and Hawkins.”

“I don’t know.”

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – Attack

Being in the depressing mansion did not seem to lower Ann’s spirits at all. On the contrary, Ann woke up more cheerful every morning. Eliza wondered why the castle had no such effect on herself. Her friend seemed more at home in it than she did.

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – The sleepover

The singing of the birds, the rushing and rustling of the leaves in the wind made her more at ease. A chilly breeze soothed her skin as she made her way up the hill. Nevertheless, she was reluctant to go back to that house. It seemed even more of a cage now she had been out with the free birds. She shrugged slightly and went in.

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 5

Chapter 5 – the encounter

She held two tops up and tried to determine which to wear.

“What do you think?”, she asked Ann.

“They’re both black.”, Ann replied with a quick glance while reading a fashion magazine on the bed now her schoolwork was done.

“Maybe that’s just the colour of my soul.”, Eliza said mockingly.

“As if!” Ann laughed while Eliza dodged the pillow aimed at her.

They laughed aloud and dropped down on the bed to listen to some music. Ann turned the volume up a few notches. “Nothing like some party music to get into the mood.”

“Right.” The first party in months! Eliza only wished she actually wanted to go. Perhaps she just hadn’t digested all the ghost stories yet, even though she liked a good dose of horror. It does make a difference if it’s set in some distant movie studio or in your own house... But she was resolved on enjoying herself, on command if she had to, for Ann’s sake and for her own.

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – The alliance

She banged the door shot and sighed. Another week gone by with nothing in it for her but school, reading, sleeping and more school. The “village” was a bore, she knew hardly anyone in it and she could forget about diversion in her explorations as well, since the attic was guarded continually by Henry and his watchdog by the time she got home.

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 3

 

 

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Chapter 3 – the village

Si sta come

D’autunno

Sugli alberi

Le foglie

(“ One is/as in autumn/on the trees/the leaves”, ‘soldati’/’soldiers’ by Giuseppe Ungaretti, translation as found in Harrison, ‘dominion of the dead’, p. 125)

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Her eyes flung wide open. It took her a minute to realize that she was staring at the ceiling and then another to recognize the annoying beep in the background as the alarm clock. She turned to look daggers at it, but as the thing refused to explode she extended her arm to the fullest to reach it. No more denying it was already morning...

The Black Rose (novel): chapter 2

Chapter 2 – The attic

She startled and woke from the depths of sleep at midnight. What had woken her? She could have sworn she felt... It was storming, of course.

No wonder she couldn’t sleep. The winds were no soft whisper like home, they roared and howled and made the walls whistle and the floors creak. For a moment she doubted the strength of the bricks that were her shelter, but they had sheltered others for hundreds of years.

Still, the cracking and squeaking kept her from going back to her sweet slumber. Or had it been sweet at all? The imprint of the dream was already gone. She rose and strolled towards the window. It was pouring, rain pattered the glass with a merciless vigour. Thunder seemed creepily close by and so did the forked lightning that tormented the land below her dark ivory tower.

Even the fierceness of nature has its splendour. Yet there was a restlessness outside which caught on and stirred up her inner agitation. She felt trapped. At least the tempest was free, a privilege she had not. She fixed her eye on the horizon instinctively, but what was that to her? Where would she go? To view another skyline and long for that one. The horizon was a myth, though a lovely one.

She picked up a random volume from the pile of books on her desk, something to clean up in the morning, and opened it at an arbitrary page.

The Black Rose (novel) : Intermezzo chapter 1-2 (first dream sequence)

A thick fog surrounds me. I don’t know where it comes from, smoke seems to whirl up from every side. It wells up from below my feet, from the walls, the ceiling, it’s choking me!

I stumble to the door, it has to be here, how many steps have it been? I can’t find it. It’s damp in my mouth, my throat. I’m coughing, but every gasp brings in more mist and no air. My lungs fill up with dew, it feels like drowning.

I can’t see. Where am I? I reach and hold my hands out like a blind person, but the room is empty. Help! I shout as loud as I can, but there’s no reply. Help! Can’t anybody hear me? Please! My desperate calls echo in the silence and are then swallowed by the nowhere around. I’m all alone.

Slowly, the mist lifts a little. I start to discern vague contours. There is something rectangular ahead of me, I can see it shimmer in the distance, as if it is beckoning me to it.

I creep closer, is it a door, a portal? I can only see the same thick white mist ahead of me as I leave it behind, like I’m walking on clouds. I crash into something hard and touch my forehead. It hurts.

I feel the cool glass as it dawns on me; I can’t see my own face in the mirror.

A pale hand, white and cold as the fog, forms out of the glass and two cold fingers touch my temples and caress the side of my face along the cheekbones.

I gasp.

The Black Rose (novel) : Chapter 1

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CHAPTER 1 – The Castle/New Beginnings

“In the middle of our life’s path I found myself in a dark forest, where the straight way was lost.”

Dante, Inferno, Canto I, verse 1-3

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She looked up at the thing looming high before her and shivered. It was nothing like she had expected, it was worse, much worse. The same look was in her brother’s eyes. She clasped his hand and squeezed it reassuringly, with as consoling a smile as she could possibly muster. With a heavy heart, they mounted the hill.

The Black Rose (novel) : Prelude

This one is another unfinished project I've been working on since I was about fifteen and that I never got around to finish. It was a bit too much to handle with my skill at the time, so I could start the novel, but I couldn't push through the challenging bits. I've been reworking it (with long, sometimes year-long lapses, like the one since I lost rewrote it, long before I came to blogger) ever since.

It's pretty low on the to do list for the time being (the things on there always shift about, depending on the circumstances, I'm afraid I have no control whatsoever over that), so I won't be making it more decent anytime soon, but I decided - very much against previous incentives - to post it. Especially since I'm too busy to get a lot of short stories up during the exams. I'll schedule the parts I've got (which is at least 80 pages or so), one a week. I don't think I'm going to read over them first and bear in mind that they're imperfect drafts, but what I'd like is for you to tell me what you didn't like about it. I'm aware of the flaws, especially that it gets pretty long-winded at times and that the whole could and should be smoothed out considerably - a legacy from its early birth, I guess - but I'd like to map out just when, where and why it spins off, so I can take it into account while rewriting it, when I get around to it.

I wasn't keen on sharing this. I don't think I ever even thought of putting it up, until today, all of a sudden, so here's the first part. Enjoy!

The Awakening of the Beast, a neo-mythological epic-apocalyptic poem

This one is a bit difficult for me to categorize. None of the labels given really fits completely with what I have in mind. It's all at once and neither at the same time. Name it after whichever layer you prefer (I'll gladly take suggestions, feel like I forgot a few labels, labelling is a loathed part of internet writing, isn't it?).

This one was written at the same time as 'Phoenix' and finished minutes before. Guess that makes them twins, lol. Anyway, it was just a day after (possibly the same day, memories go hazy that quickly) the elegiac set, when I was still pretty sick and pumped up on stuff to get through classes. So yeah, again, I blame the pain killers. I suppose it is a bit weird.

For insiders (aka residents of The Coffee Shop), I could've called this poem 'an ode on the Rise of the Cult of Mass'. That would make him 'The Beast'. He doesn't visit here, so there's a pretty good chance he's never going to find out and I'll get away with it ;-).

Without further ado... (btw, the song was one of the inspirations. So were my much adored Romantics. And a bunch of other stuff, but I won't keep boring you with endless lists.)

The Awakening of the Beast

A magical cry

splits the tiresome sky

yonder, it howls with thunder

puts the wildest seas asunder

setting mighty Heavens aflame,

the ground from which it came

shall shake and quake.

The beast will reign, shed

smouldering ash and dust from its mane

under its unearthing paws the ground will crack
bring long-forgotten legend back
from what had turned drought
skeletons shall spring and sprout
- eyes wild, flesh tender -

deny their surrender

and wolves in awe and fright

from all around call forth the night.

Suggestions, feedback, criticism (esp. on what doesn't seem to work) and pointers will be very much appreciated.

PS: yes, I'm aware I may have 'overdone' it with all the monsters, but in the horror genre, I just have too many illustrations to choose from. It's a deformity...

From Stories with love ;)

Beware

What happens when a group of hikers go ghost-hunting despite the explicit warnings of the people in the nearest village to stay indoors and out of the woods when the sun goes down?

5 A.M.

In for some mild horror? Enjoy!