Dark Short Fiction
Dark Romantic Fiction
Horror
Ghosts
The Supernatural
And the occasional bottle of wine...
Today I'm sharing a horror flash fiction story. It came to me two nights ago, as most stories do, in the middle of the night. At 1:30 in the morning, I got up and opened my computer to write it down and get it out of my head. I don't usually post something this rough, with little time for editing and maybe another set of eyes to take a look at it, but sometimes you have to take a chance and put something out there. I think at some point, I'd like to turn this into a complete short story. But I don't even have a title yet!! Do you have an idea? Leave a comment (and be entered into a drawing for a $10 Amazon Gift Card) with a title suggestion or if you liked the story or not. Enjoy! The ad read: Spacious apartment, rent free, one condition. Housekeep for the well-known woman upstairs and tell no one. Competitive pay. My experience and excellent references secure me the position. I'm used to the lavish parties. Gatherings of like-minded individuals eager to partake in the most savage and primal instincts of human nature. But summer has cooled to autumn and her Halloween gala is a dark extravaganza of ghoulish indulgence. I toss and turn as the festivities rage on above my bedroom. Something's burning. Again. I've warned her this is dangerous, but she won't listen. At some point, the repetitive beat of The Time Warp lulls me to sleep, drowning out the holiday screams and laughter. The next morning, bleary-eyed and coffee in hand, I get to work. I scrub the stained carpet, scour the walls and bleach the kitchen and bathroom. I wipe the sweat from my brow and shake my head. In all my years, one thing never changes. No matter how famous they become, how many headlines they make, serial killers are by far the messiest people to work for. 
Please hop around to the other horror and paranormal authors to see what creepy things they have in store for you.
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Welcome to Day 4 of the October Frights Blog Hop. I won't be around much today, it's my birthday and I have spooky shenanigans to attend too... but we can still have some fun. Leave a comment (to be entered in a drawing to win a $10 Amazon gift card) and let me know which birthday cake I should celebrate with! I'll be back tomorrow with a horror flash fiction. 
CREEPY CAKE ONE 
CREEPY CAKE TWO 
CREEPY CAKE THREE Don't forget to check out the other awesome horror and paranormal authors on the hop! 
Welcome, my pretties, to day 2 of the October Frights Blog Hop. (Again, many thanks to Anita Stewart for making the hop possible) At the end of the hop, I'll put everyone's name who commented on my posts in a drawing for a $10.00 Amazon Gift Card. Good luck. Today you'll get to read part two of my excerpt from FAVORS FOR THE DEAD, a dark fiction with dark romantic elements WIP. If you missed the first part, scroll down to yesterday's post and take a peek. Enjoy. Elliott climbed two rungs up the ladder. With a quick slice of a knife, he freed his once beloved’s bound feet and hands, and cut her down from her gallows. She dropped into his arms. Her vacant, protruding eyes stared up at him. The tip of her pink tongue peeked out of her parted lips. He ran his gloved fingers over her lids to close her morbid gaze and stuffed her tongue back in her mouth. With careful steps he backed down to the floor. “Elliott.” A distant murmur. And again, “Elliott.” “Aranda, is that you? I told you not to follow me.” He checked over his shoulder. The fading light showed he was alone. “Elliott.” The corpse twitched. He jumped. No, it couldn’t be. Its left arm began to rise until its hand cupped the side his cheek. He flinched at the touch. “Elliott.” His heart pounded and he swallowed a scream. Pull yourself together. Remember who you are. The dead can’t hurt you. You rule over the dead. Elliott inhaled, playing the words over and over in his mind, until his control returned. “Back so soon? I thought you wanted to be dead and away from me.” As if she had cast a spell on herself, the once radiant strands of her hair turned brittle as straw. Her eyes, wrapped in a slimly film, sunk deep into her hollow face. The skin on her face bubbled and blistered. The stench of rotten food floating in its own juices caused him to gag. “What’s wrong Elliott, don’t you find me attractive any longer?” He slammed the decomposing cadaver of his old lover into the corner. Unfazed, she floated back in front of him. “What do you want?” He asked. Her two peace fingers pointed toward him. They inched closer, transforming into long, slithering green snakes. He fumbled backwards. They followed, cornering him. Their forked tongues flicked, the outline of each scale visible. They rested at his mouth, wanting in. He pursed his lips tight. Had fear paralyzed him? Or had she? His arms and legs no longer did what he wanted. He stood incapacitated. Helpless. “Any time you or that inept, sorry excuse for a witch, Aranda, attempt to speak my name you will be silenced.” The serpent’s hissed. Against Elliott’s will, his mouth opened. Fear plunged in his gut like a knife. Their bellies slid up over his tongue and down his esophagus. “You will not say my name to raise me or to curse me.” Elliott’s throat tightened. His eyes watered. They were strangling him from the inside. “If you do, my reptilian friends will pay you another visit.” He retched, his stomach muscles contracting to expel the beasts from deep inside him. They remained. His vision blurred. Panic suffocated him. “Do you understand?” He edged near unconsciousness. Elliott opened his eyes. He wiggled his fingers. They worked. He brought his hands to his face. No snakes. No pain. He could breath. “I said, do you understand?” The putrid carcass stared at him from across the room. “You're pathetic and can’t beat me. A dead witch’s curse lasts as long as the cycle of the moon. You may deter me for thirty days but you can’t stop me.” “No need to tell me the rules. And you’ll be dead before the curse ends." The room went dark. He didn’t dare move or breath. One lantern flickered on. Then another. Finally, the last one. The witch hung lifeless from the ceiling with bulging eyes and tongue drooping from her mouth. Her hands and feet were still bound. The cool metal of the knife pressed against his palm. He roared with anger. “You think you can get in my head? And try to scare me?” He circled the table over and over again, faster and faster, his breathing labored, until his fury subsided. “Think again, my dear.” He opened the front door. Like déjà vu, he climbed up to the second rung of the ladder and cut her down. She fell into his arms. He kept her arms and feet tied, her eyes open and her tongue dangling. He carried her into the night. The stars twinkled at him and the sickle moon gave him a sideways grin. “This time you’ll stay silent and dead.”
Please remember to hop around and visit the other
horror and paranormal authors and check out the creepy offerings they have in store for you. 
First, many thanks to Anita Stewart for organizing this hop, creating all the graphics, gathering the authors and hosting six days of creepy fun! At the end of the hop, I'll put everyone's name who commented on my posts in a drawing for a $10.00 Amazon Gift Card. Good luck. Today and tomorrow I'm sharing an excerpt from my WIP, Favors For the Dead. The story itself is dark fiction with some dark romantic elements. The excerpt is just plain dark... I hope you enjoy it. The house is nothing but a weary shell of what it once was. It grumbled at Elliot’s intrusion in the form of creeks and moans as he puts one cautious foot in front of the other. A solitary dwelling for decades, it no longer wanted company, but to be left alone in its decaying misery. A yellowish glow streamed from the camp lanterns scattered around the room. Pushed up against the brick fireplace, missing half its hearth, lay a tattered, sex tinged mattress half covered by a moth-eaten blanket. Broken Jack Daniels bottles and used condoms littered the floor around it. The walls were spray painted with angry and profane graffiti including a list of sexual favors offered by a woman named Wanda. He couldn’t escape the stench of piss, vomit and sex and didn’t want to. He inhaled deeply. All this helped him tap into the negative energy left behind. While this wasn’t a setting he’d bring a woman to or sit around and drink with friends, it was however, the ideal place for his Samhain plans. Elliott moved into the dining room. Food in varying degrees of decomposition lay scattered around. Nibbling at what may have been French fries, a family of rats stared up at him. Elliott stomped his feet and they scurried off. His beloved stood atop the lone chair that survived the vandalism. The last two days hadn’t been kind to her. Dressed in a white ritual robe, she wavered between semi-conscious and awareness. Her hair, tangled with dirt and sweat, lay matted around her face. He’d bound her hands behind her back, and her feet together. The noose around her neck was tethered to the rafters above. “My dear! I see you’re awake.” No answer. “Ah, the cold shoulder. That’s not very becoming of you. But I’ve discovered there is much about you that is unflattering.” She spat in his face. Elliot wiped the spittle off his cheek on the back of his sleeve. “Give me what I want.” “Never.” “All I have to do is push the chair away and you’re dead.” “Then do it. I’m dead either way.” Elliot paced in front of her. “In eighteen sixty-six, the Reverend Samuel Haughton of Great Britain calculated a formula using the weight of the criminal, that would be you, and the length of the rope, or drop, to quicken death by the neck snapping faster. Unfortunately, you’re looking thinner than what I used in my original calculation and I have no urgent interest in letting you die fast. But, if you rethink your position, I’ll redo the math and make your death relatively swift.” “You think you have power because my life is in your hands, but there’s nothing you can offer me to do your bidding. I want to die. I despise you and I always have.” Her words scorched his heart.“I gave you everything you wanted; a beautiful home, designer clothes, money and my love. You took it all with a smile on your face.” “You’re incapable of love. I smiled on the outside, I had to, it’s the nature of the relationship between the necromancer and the risen one. But I am no longer bound to that. It was a charade. I was an empty shell on the inside. Your mere touch made my stomach turn.” Rage bubbled inside him like a volcano ready to erupt. “When you’d leave my bed and go to your room, I’d stand under the hot shower for an hour trying to get your filth off of me.” Shut her up! The voice inside his head screamed. “Do it,” she taunted. “Push the chair. I don’t care if takes a half hour to die, just knowing I’ll be free of you will be worth it. Do it.” Shut the bitch up! “Do it you fucking coward.” Don’t let her talk to you that way! Elliott’s last hope vanished. Deep in her eyes he saw no trace of love or affection. No hint of fear or panic, only pure revulsion for him. In a series of awkward movements, she hopped her bound feet toward the edge of the chair. “If you don’t have the courage to do it, I’ll do it myself.” “You vile whore. You’ll rot in hell.” “An eternity in hell is far better than another five minutes with you.” If she jumps she wins. And you lose. His fury rose to the point of no return ending in a brutal release. As she was about to step off, he seized her body and shoved it violently against the wall. He grabbed the chair. As she swung back toward him the chair became a bat and she a human piñata. He struck her. Again. And again. And again. But she wouldn’t break. Her eyes bulged. Her face turned a dark red. But her eyes haunted him. They glared with pure defiance. And her lips. Her lips curled into a cruel smirk he’d never forget. Chair still in hand, he smashed it against the floor, screaming, “Die bitch, die,” each blow causing it to shatter until nothing was left and exhilaration filled him. His beloved’s swaying diminished to a slow moving pendulum. Death may have been her wish, but natural instincts took over. She thrashed against the noose, gagging and fighting for breath. He waited in silence, enjoying her agony. Twelve minutes had passed. How much longer would she last? A god-awful guttural groan escaped her as her body gave in to its last twitches. “I was hoping you’d go longer my dear, but I think you’re almost at hell’s door. It’s a shame really.” He gave her a gentle push and began to sing. Rock a bye baby, from the rafter top When the wind blows, you’ll pray it stop When the noose snaps, your body will fall Down you’ll come, dark secrets and all Forward and back, you sway and swing Life hanging by a heavy braid of string Rock a bye baby, do not you fear Never mind, my beloved, I’m right here Rock a bye baby, a struggle so violent Then your body goes, limp, still and silent Eyes shut tight, last breath will cease Into slumber but never to rest in peace. Carina hung motionless. Her bladder released. A puddle formed on the floor. Elliott circled around her and sighed. “Forgive me, my dear, I should have mentioned that if Ms. Millane chooses not to give me what’s rightly mine, you’ve sealed her fate to that of yours.
If you enjoyed that, I hope you'll stop by tomorrow for part two!
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Debbie Christiana
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