newnumber6

Here's my entries for the One Hundred Words of Horror thing.

Savage Beast

"You misunderstand us, Hunter," said the man in black. "We’re not monsters. We have a deep, sacred reverence for life.

"Just... not human life. Why should we? You pollute our world, and at every opportunity you shove wood in our hearts."

His fangs gleamed and I struggled against my bonds, thinking of Mina. As if sensing that, he added, "Relax, there’ll be no bloodless corpse for your darling wife to find. That would be crass and as wasteful as you." He raised a saw, its handle made of polished bone. "We make sure to use every part of the animal."

Caveat Emptor

The occult bookstore owner promised it would completely rid the house of spirits, and offered a money-back guarantee.

After months of strange, unsettling noises since moving in, Mr. Bradley was desperate. It sounded like a good deal.

At midnight, amidst horrific moans and unexplainable knockings, the family linked hands and performed the ritual.

At last the house fell silent.

Two days later, neighbors broke through the door and found their limp, dehydrated bodies still in the circle. Only Mr. Bradley survived, and has been in a hospital since then, listless and staring vacantly, no spark of life in his eyes.

Meme

This is a short but absolutely true story, a story about the future.

The last person to read this story will die.

The fate will be inescapable.

That might seem like a grim prospect. Of course, anyone can avoid being the last reader by ensuring somebody else is. You could post the story as your own. It’s been done before, and if spreads widely enough, the last reader might be a stranger to you. Is it fair to inflict that fate on them? More importantly, was it any fairer to inflict it on you? Make your decision. Pass it on?

Long-Term Relationship

She appeared every week in Nate’s apartment to re-enact her last night. She entered, showered, changed, then sat in front of the TV for three hours before she went to the door, and was strangled by whoever was on the other side. It was the same every week, yet Nate couldn’t resist watching. He considered trying to catch the killer, to put her spirit to rest… but then he might never see her again. She was the only one in his life, sad as that was. On their tenth anniversary, Nate shot himself, having waited long enough to meet her.

(Copyright/Creative Commons info can be found here).

(Last year's entries can be found here).

If you do the One Hundred Words of Horror meme, feel free to post a link in the comments so people who are interested can follow up on people not on their flist.

So, there we go. Not the best. Would have spent yesterday working on a few more and improving these but had computer problems to deal with. More on that in a later post. Happy Halloween everyone!