OCTOBER 2022 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO DAN JONES!

[Bowler1]

A Marriage made in Heaven… (oops!) Hell

I remember my last sunset, and as the light faded hunger like I never felt before took me, and I knew I’d kill… I would feed on human blood.

Yet I don’t hate myself, how could I, not when love brought me to these dark depths.

I’d made a vow, till death do us part, but even that didn’t stop us.

We’d found love worth living an eternity for… and that’s why you die tonight.

 

[bedyak]

Hot Pursuit

“…the skeletons stopped..” said apprentice

“their curse loses potency in the light. The clouds broke…” Wollheim said

“But when night falls?”

“Not to worry, a drop of virgins blood and this amulet should see us safely away… Just step over here, and a tiny drop” Wollheim motioned with his dagger.

“Remember that apothecary from the village? well, we sorta…”

Understanding dawned on Wollhiem, a hopeless sad smile spread over his face. The sky darkened. “Run!”

 

[Peter V]

By Dawns Early(ish) Light

“Cease your struggle. The sun is rising and you will be ended.”

The creature hissed and continued to strain against its bonds; they would not hold much longer.

Solomon took hold of the drapes that kept the Great Hall in darkness. With his penchant for dramatic timing, he waited until the vampire freed itself before wrenching the heavy material from the windows.

Outside, night still reigned.

"What..."

“Daylight saving, old man. Now I spring forward.”

 

[Bren G]

Reversion to the Mean

I gazed upon my ancestral home. It’s weathered face seemed sad, yet grateful, that the child, now a man, had returned.

I was welcomed in! Enjoyed true gaiety for a time. When without warning, it’s countenance contorted. Cruel it became. And familiar too. Memories, faded by time, flashed with wicked vividness.

The child within recoiled, beseeching me to flee again.

Taking its quivering hand, I whispered sweetly; “No. We stay. It can’t hurt us now.”

 

[Starbeast]

Dr Meaton Hook’s Gothic Movie Marathon
featuring: Christopher Lee​

1977


“We’re back. I’m Dr Meaton with tonight’s guest, Christopher Lee. So Chris, are you enjoying the movie?”

“Absolutely. Horror of Dracula is a marvelous production by Hammer Films. Also, Peter Cushing is great to work with.”

“...Uh. Time for, commercial.”

#

“Something wrong, Mr Hook?”

“You have no, reflection.”

“Let’s keep that between you and I. Or I’ll feed your head to my rats.”

“Secret kept...sir.”

“Excellent. I enjoy your weekly television horror show.”

 

[JS Wiig]

Goodnight, Sweet Child

I lie alone in bed, fear and uncertainty creeping over me like shadows from the setting sun. What was that scraping on the window? Just the wind in the tree outside or something more sinister? All those scary stories suddenly spring to life.

Now a creak in the hallway. The ghosts, ghouls and goblins have come to devour my soul! I pull the covers over my head tight, and tremble ‘till morning’s first light.

 

[johnnyjet]

Castle Lights

Someone left the castle lights on. Grayson hurried between rooms extinguishing lamps and candles.

He looked back. The lights were on! One of Master Raymond's pranks?

He extinguished the main foyer's lamps and hid in a closet.

A shadow passed through. The lamps reignited.

A disembodied voice: "Guests are arriving. Prepare a place for them."

He ran outside shaking. An army of dark shadows arose from the moonlit horizon.

The shadows of past masters.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

In The Shadows

The shadow crossed the beach to where you played on the sand, gap-toothed and innocent, the perfect sacrifice. It had terrorised the village, delivering evil on nights like these: the fire high, white horses rushing from the sea.

Atop the cliff, I ungloved nails nurtured to a taper to cut, precisely, six threads. The puppeteer dropped with them, his shadowed magic gone. I watched you and the salt on my lips wasn’t sea-water but tears.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

All’s Well That Ends Well Part 2, or, It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

My sense of unease increased as I approached the crumbling portico.
A single flame guttered from a cobwebbed lantern. I glanced behind at my demonically dancing shadow.
I knocked, the sound echoing like cannon-fire. Footsteps approached from within.
The door creaked open, light flooded out. Too bright. I turned away to see that same dancing shadow.

A spectral figure spoke. "Yes?"

This was it. Time to meet my destiny.

"Have you considered double-glazing?"

 

[BT Jones]

The City That Vanquished Light​

“All hail The Night-Bringer!”

Governor Mephilious humbly diverted the town criers’ adulation to dawn’s rising purple glimmer. The crowd waited, breath bated, as the sun rose… then disappeared entirely behind Deepforge’s freshly complete, city-encompassing domed roof.

Cheers erupted. The light had been vanquished. Deepforge would remain perpetually shrouded in night, her uncompromised gothic architecture wondrously lit only by the dancing flames of her gas lantern network.

Dawntowners, sweltering in an east coast heatwave, lamented.

 

[Dan Jones]

Last Dance Upon The Heath

The Earl’s manor, that crumbling black ingot amid acres of virgin October snow, sleeps with shutters down, doors locked, tight as secrets. He sits within, a beslippered, regretful Havisham, holding frigid vigils beside unlit candles.

An old melody promising endless pleasure and flashes of light taunts him.

At midnight’s toll he drags himself to the manor’s modest cemetery. He stands by her grave, countenance fierce, frozen hands gripping his trusty shovel.

They will dance again.

 

[mosaix]

Darkness. The Devil’s Friend?

A subterranean dungeon. A flickering candle. A chess table. Now you see it, now you don’t.

White squares, black squares. White pieces, black pieces. The devil plays black, a girl child plays white in a duel for her dying father’s soul.

The devil reaches for a knight, the candle flickers, a shadow passes, he touches a rook in error. He must play it but it has no safe square. He loses.

The candle burns bright.

 

[chrispenycate]

Removals​

Dewdamp slate glistens in the new-appeared dawnbreak, epitome of slippery, but I am next to a chimney, absorbing warmth of breakfast from below, and drying clothes.

Burglary is like that. More obscurity than lock-picks, more slippery than a judge. Plan getaway before how to break in.

And plan what your target. If it's something big and heavy, dress like somebody who carries loads. No random acquisitions. Ordinary enough nobody notices, twilight invisible.

 

[Hugh]

Folly​

Another turret had collapsed last night.

So little remained of the retreat he’d so cunningly constructed, its disintegration mirroring the ruin and decay of its creator and sole inhabitant.

Soon the light would get in.

Soon he’d be exposed to the eyes of the world, that same world he’d sought to avoid these many years.

Even now someone was banging on the door, some damned Lucifer, some light bearer, threatening his darkness.

…...an Amazon delivery

 

[Ordinator]

Hunter hunted

The putrid arrow swished from the trees, passing her ear by an inch, to plunge deep into her horse. Instinctively, Mara sucked light from the horse as it slumped down. It was a good horse, but it didn’t need light anymore.

Mara looked over her shoulder spotting the black eyed thrall between the trees, feeling the light boiling inside. The thrall loaded a new bolt, indifferent. It didn’t know.

Mara readied light and rapier. Playtime.

 

[scarpelius]

Anno Domini 2022, 296th day

I had a switch.
With it I could hide myself in the dark and only show my true form when the denizens of the castle deserve it.
For some I was present in every shadow... that made them think twice before evildoing. When not, it was enough to flip the switch.
They broke the switch and the light spread everywhere, diminishing, dissipating.
They don't fear the truth anymore and that terrifies me...

 

[Ursa major]

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On Reflection, Nothing Succeeds Like Succession​

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Age and infirmity make my father, the King, delusional.​

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“The all-white tree protects us,” he proclaims, never having seen it. “It dies, we die.”​

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I perfectly position a silver birch stump in the forest, waiting for an overcast day.​

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‘News’ of the tree reaches the palace; he and the court set out.​

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“King’s eyes only,” I say.​

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Seeing bark and dead wood as pure white, he dies. (A trick: wet wood reflects the sky.)​

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[Ursa major]

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This challenge is now closed to new entries and the poll is open at the link below:

POLL -- October 2022 75-Word Challenge -- READ FIRST POST!​

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