I should be inured to the way you lot can turn the most pleasant of topics or images into some kind of blood-fest, but I was gobsmacked at the number of near-deaths, mutilations, drownings, slayings and general bloody unpleasantness in the stories here! Is it so hard to write something sweet and optimistic?!! (Said the woman who wrote about genocide for the theme of Innocence...
)
Anyhow, faced with the welter of gore, when I drew up my shortlist I paid especial attention to stories which resisted the lure of blood, but inevitably some of the horror sneaked in. There were one or two stories I enjoyed, but I felt were lacking in plot/story line, and one piece I greatly liked but which didn't meet my speculative fiction definition. So my list, a little longer than usual:
AlexH -- Stay Away from the Red Coats
Cat's Cradle -- The Robe and the Arrowhead
chrispenycate -- The beginning of the End
HazelRah -- Halja in a Handbasket
Hoopy -- In Town For One Night Only
LittleStar -- May Day
mosaix -- On Reflection
Phyrebrat -- She Always Gets Her Teeth
Rafellin -- Jesse's Hand
Stable -- Never Meet Your Heroes
Victoria -- The Awakening
The Bradburyesque tale from
Hoopy gave me shivers so that got my first vote, and I loved the voice and sheer love of life in the mayfly's story by
LittleStar, so that got the second. I was then rather stuck as to where to place my third vote, with so many good stories vying for it, but in the end, after a good deal of to-ing and fro-ing I plumped for
HazelRah's inversion of Little Red Riding Hood.
Rosemary-scented dew-of-the-sea thanks for the mentions and shortlistings
Cathbad,
Vaz,
johnnyjet,
Starbeast and
Shyrka and seal-sleek crimson-coated mega-thanks for the lovely votes, openly proclaimed by
TDZ,
Stable,
Cat's,
Phyrebrat, and stealthed by
nixie,
ratsy,
Titanium Ti,
Wruter, and
Alex D!
