R’Lyeh

Terribleminds.com writing challange with random elements: Lovecraftian. Need to hide a body! A secret message.

 

I came to myself with the body of my sister lying at my feet. Blood oozed from the gash in her neck, and my right hand and the knife it held were covered in crimson. The air was full of a coppery stink. I felt dazed, like one recovering from a long illness. Had I done this? I had no memory of it. She had been trying to tell me something, something about my new husband, something I didn’t want to hear.

I stepped back from Virginia. One of her hands was tangled in the hem of my skirts but it fell with a dull thump to the carpet as I moved. Her fingers were drenched in her own blood and she had stained my clothes with her gore, the stripes and curves of red on my dress almost like a message she was trying to pass on. I looked at the streaks, bemused. That could certainly be a C, then a T, perhaps an H and a U. But no word started with those letters, it was nonsense trying to create meaning out of Virginia’s dying grasp.

I heard movement in the study above me, a chair being pulled away from the desk along the polished boards. My husband. He must not see what I seemed to have done. I looked wildly around the parlour. I had only been in this house for a few days since returning from our honeymoon. R’lyeh, my husband had whimsically named it in some foreign tongue. There was only one place a body would fit, the cabinet below the grandfather clock. I hurried over and opened the low door. The small space was stuffed with rags. As I pulled them out I saw they were an assortment of old clothes, many covered in rusty brown stains and an odd greenish slime. I did not have time to ponder this collection, but pushed them under the chaise-lounge to be disposed of later.

Footfalls on the staircase. It was only now penetrating that I had killed my dear sister. I felt like my mind wasn’t working properly. I’d had odd blackouts and strange impulses for several months but I’d attributed it to the fog of being in love. No time to think about it now. I dragged Virginia across the carpet and bundled her still-warm body into the clock cabinet, forcing her into a foetal position with her head between her knees. The door was hard to close, but I managed to push it enough that the latch caught.

The blood on the carpet was masked by the multicoloured pattern but there was nothing I could do about my dress and my right hand. I was no longer holding the knife, I couldn’t remember putting it down but hoped it was safely with the body. I thrust my right hand behind my back and tried to scrunch my skirts closed over the tell-tale marks on my skirts as the door to the parlour opened and my handsome husband entered.

He halted at the doorway, cocking his head to one side as though sensing something amiss. I tried to school my features into a smile. ‘Has your sister left already?’ he asked in a puzzled tone. ‘I was so looking forward to tea with her.’

‘She had to go,’ I managed to gasp, unable to come up with anything else. I could not bear to think of his horror and disgust if he knew! He strode towards me, and as usual when I was close to him I felt calmer, blissful, yet with an undercurrent of fear as though a part of me still didn’t believe I deserved to be so happy.

He halted a step away, suddenly sniffing the air. His eyes widened as he scanned the room. Did they glint green for a moment? No, surely they were deep brown as always. ‘What an interesting smell,’ he said slowly. ‘Delicious. What are they preparing for our tea?’

I could not reply, I could smell nothing but blood.

He reached forward and gently pulled my right hand from behind my back. ‘Oh dear,’ he said with an odd smile. ‘I can see that someone is strongly influenced by atmosphere.’ He kissed my hand and an abrupt thrill of terror went through me as his tongue flicked over my palm. It felt cold and slimy.

‘Too soon, too soon,’ he murmured, ‘but I really can’t be expected to resist.’ He took my head in both his hands and his long green tongue began to quest towards me, and then another squirmed from his mouth, and another. He held me conscious with the strength of his gaze while the tentacles began to wrap around my face.

The Crooked Tree

(flash fiction challenge from Terribleminds.com based on a picture of a blasted tree in fog)

Natalie Maddalena

I was jolted from sleep as the nest jerked. A moment later it dropped out from under me. I fell a wing-length with a startled squawk and landed awkwardly on my eggs, splaying my legs wide to avoid damaging them with my hard feet. The whole branch continued to shake erratically although I could see from the other trees around me that there was no wind.

I peered over the edge of the nest. Almost directly below me a fox sat staring up hungrily. I usually felt very safe, so high above wingless predators, but the continued twitching of the branch unnerved me. And the way that fox was watching, waiting … I looked along the thick branch to see if some large animal was climbing towards me, causing the swaying, but it was bare. A strange noise came to my attention and I looked further down. At the base of the tree crouched a beaver, its huge teeth working away at the trunk.

I knew beavers, of course, and their habit of gnawing down trees to use in their own nests; but we were quite some way from the water. Why was it here destroying my home? I realised at once my desperate situation. Claws and beak are no use in moving fragile eggs. I was in no danger myself, but my babies had no chance if the tree fell. If the drop didn’t shatter them, the fox would make short work of them.

After a moment’s hesitation, loathe to leave my eggs, I hopped out of the nest and dived down to where the beaver squatted; fluttering around its head to get its attention then perching nearby. I couldn’t speak beaver, of course, but somehow alerting it to my situation was my only hope. Its sad brown eyes watched me and it paused in its destruction. It glanced up at my nest, finding it unerringly which suggested to me that it already knew it was there. I began pleading with the creature, hoping it could understand the import of my song if not the words. The beaver stared at me. As long as I could keep its attention, it wasn’t chewing on the trunk.

But then the fox barked once. Even to my avian ear it sounded impatient and commanding. To my horror, the beaver went to continue its chewing. The beaver must have weighed considerably more than the fox and had its own fearsome teeth and claws, why was it obeying? I made my song louder, more impassioned. The beaver huddled into itself as though indecisive. The fox barked again but the beaver made no move.

There was a rustling in nearby bushes and the tail of a second fox appeared. It emerged back wards, dragging a little beaver cub. It turned and sat, holding the child’s tail in its jaws while the first fox yapped imperiously. The furry young thing was clearly alive, squirming feebly in the dirt.

I found it in myself to pity the beaver, even as it resumed its murderous task. It couldn’t risk attacking the foxes while they had its baby. The foxes couldn’t eat the child without risking dire retribution. But they could make the beaver work for them while they held its cub.

But I could not give up on my own unborn children. I darted at the second fox. It was a female, I thought; although it is much harder to distinguish between the sexes with animals than birds. Presumably they can tell amongst themselves. I was about a third her size and rather less than that in weight difference, but I had my own sharp weapons and I was desperate. She ducked out of my way as I swooped back and forth but did not drop the baby beaver’s tail.

Suddenly I was knocked out of the air. I tumbled across the dirt and the first fox sprang. He got a mouthful of feathers but I made it back aloft, staggering back up to my nest with one wing sorely damaged. My home was tilted now, the eggs already in danger of falling. I had so little time left. I was no match for the foxes, and there seemed even less value in attacking the beaver. It was in the same grave straights as myself; and even if I managed to hurt it a little, it wouldn’t stop. Regardless of species, I recognised in it another frantic mother.

But I had one more ploy to try.

Waiting until no eyes were on me, I put all my meagre skill and power into one last dive. My claws gripped tightly and my beak drove deep into the little eyesocket and through into the brain. The baby beaver convulsed and then lay still. I launched myself back into the air and back to my own precious children.

The adult beaver roared and lunged towards the foxes. The female dropped the dead cub and fled, the male close on her heels. The poor mother sniffed her baby, nuzzled it, keened her sorrow. But I had to do it. It was her baby or my own. I would do anything for my eggs. She had made the same choice herself, in trying to fell my tree for the foxes. And now she would leave me and my children in peace and safety.

The beaver stared up at me for a few moments. Then she turned and slowly lurched back to the tree trunk. And started to gnaw.

 

Initiation

Initiation

This was my response to a flash fiction challenge on unicorns proposed by Chuck Wendig at http://terrible minds.com, back in July 2011. I’m reposting it here.

Initiation
Gerald polished his pearly horn on his flank and then checked his reflection in the lake.

“Looking good!” neighed Simon. “They won’t be able to resist you.”

Gerald straightened his neck. Was the horn really big enough? Sure, it gleamed in the moonlight and all that, but he’d feel a lot more confident if it was just a little bigger. He knew Simon was admiring, but he hardly counted. Simon was still practically a foal. He wouldn’t get his initiation night for years.

The other stallions were watching from the nearby trees. Magnificent, every one of them; with noble necks and shiny hooves and glowing white coats. And big horns.

Gerald grimaced a goodbye to Simon and trotted towards the other males. They spun in perfect unison and led him away through the forest. Like the ghosts of horses, they flowed through the warm night with an elegance no other creature had ever attained. They cantered through burbling streams, wove between ancient trees, and galloped across moonlit glades until at last they reached the edge of the forest. A human town lay across the fields, lit by the huge bonfire that marked the midsummer festival.

“The festivities are well underway,” said James, the eldest. “They will all be drunk by now, relaxed and lusty. Go, find your virgin.”

Gerald nodded to them, and started to make his way around the edge of the field, staying in the shadows. He was looking forward to his initiation, but he still wasn’t sure his horn was big enough.

 Natalie Maddalena

Welcome to Highlight on Words

This is where I plan to post my flash (and possibly longer) fiction. My life revolves around words — I’m a fiction editor, a book reviewer, a slush pile delver, and a fiction judge — but I don’t seem to get much time to do my own writing. Or so I complain. But no more excuses! Most writers have a day job, children, spouses, friends … and they still manage it.

Chuck Wendig over at Terribleminds.com posts a flash fiction prompt every Friday so I plan to start there.