Thursday, October 14, 2010
Be Back Later, Mother
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Waiting for Sunset.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Amidst the Shadows
The creature that lay in wait amidst the shadows was attracted by magic. He could smell it, taste it in the air. Magic was what he craved and tonight his attention was focused on the house in front of him. He had crawled through the shadows and observed it from all angles and could tell that there were three people inside, all humans. This should be easy but he would proceed with caution, the power was stronger than he was used to sensing.
He crept away from the fence and scurried over to the bushes along the house, pausing long enough to make sure he hadn’t been noticed. There was a nearby window opened and he scrambled up the side of the house, sliding through the small opening. Once inside, it waited in silence to see if its entry had been detected. All remained silent so it crept towards the stairs and glanced upward, where the main source of the power had been, and felt it ebbing away into nothing.
A tendril of fear shot through him, nobody should be powerful enough to hide magic that strong so quickly and completely. Normally he was invisible to other wielders of magic but he couldn’t think of it as just a coincidence that the magic had retreated just as he was about to climb the stairs. He crouched at the bottom of the steps and listened for any sound to alert him of his detection. He didn’t hear or feel anything coming from the darkness above so he began to crawl forward, one step at a time.
As it reached the top of the stairs, it noticed a light coming from one of the rooms off to the left. He rushed forward, almost gliding along the floor, and peeked into the room. It was a little girl’s room, decorated in the usual pinks and purples. Asleep, in a bed adorned with multiple princess paraphernalia, was a little girl who couldn’t have been any older than ten. The light was coming from a nightlight on the far side of the room. This worried the creature because it hadn’t notice any lights while surveying the house from outside. That meant that one of the parents had turned it on recently and they were able to do it without him being aware of it.
Turning towards the other door, the creature wondered if it would be easier to leave now and find some other prey. If it had been detected by someone so powerful, though, it may also be hunted. The creature decided to get rid of the entire family and any chance of being hunted while it was already inside their house.
He moved towards the room where he assumed the parents were when the door to the little girl’s room inched open and filled the little hallway with the dim light of the nightlight. The creature stopped and turned quickly. The little girl was standing beside the bed and staring directly at him. Acting as fast as he could, before she could do anything to alert her parents, the creature ran directly at her.
It should have only taken it a second or two to close the distance but as soon as it entered the room it couldn’t move, stuck in its place by something it could not see or detect. The little girl just stared at him, unmoving and unafraid by what she saw. He wanted to turn around to see what was keeping him in place but couldn’t even turn his head. All he could do was watch as the room grew darker, all of the shadows closing in on it and the little girl. He stared at the girl and felt the magic flowing easily from her. He had never felt anything like it before and it scared him. An amused little grin spread across her face. She enjoyed what she was doing; she knew she’d already won. Anger filled him as the shadows of the room enclosed around him and began crushing him. He let himself get killed by a mere human girl and all she did was just stand there and watch. The pressure around him became too much to bear and he felt himself swallowed by the darkness until darkness was all that was left.
...............
Tara watched as the ball of darkness receded to the far corners of the room leaving nothing of the creature behind. She quietly tip-toed to her parents’ room and made sure that they were still asleep (and safe). She went back to her room and shut the door, grimacing at all the girly designs that her mom had insisted cover every inch of her room. Climbing into bed, she thought to herself that tonight had been fun. She extended her magic outwards, making sure nothing else could harm her or her family. Once she knew it was secure she called out to the shadows and had them surround the nightlight and cover the window. She felt the comfort that came with the darkness that enveloped her and peacefully drifted off to sleep.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Seaside Fiction Contest
Saturday, July 10, 2010
In The Woods
Steve leaned against a nearby tree, completely exhausted but unable to ever really rest again. He glanced down at the purple and bluish bite mark on his arm and knew that it was the reason for all of his misery. His every thought was consumed by the hunger that pulsed through him and clouded his every thought. All he wanted to do was eat, eating would satisfy him, the problem was what his brain was now telling him was food.
Images from the past week flashed through his mind. A real zombie outbreak had consumed his small little mountain town like it had in so many other places across the world. All of the pain and suffering he had seen was now replaying itself in his mind. Then it had been horrible to see people he knew killed and eaten alive. Now what troubled him was the thought that he wished he could have done some of the eating himself. He hadn’t seen his wife, Tabitha, for days and had a feeling deep in his gut that she had perished like so many others.
Far off in the distance he heard gunshots and screams. That meant that soon this little sanctuary would be swarming with people that were itching to put a bullet through his skull. Part of him wanted to stay, to just let it all be over, but a bigger part of him still wanted to survive. That is if you could call whatever he was surviving.
He turned and ran in the opposite direction of the noise and trying to be quiet but knowing he needed to get out of the area as fast as possible. On his run he encountered more of his kind trying to do the same thing or, so far gone, just standing and staring off into space. He paid little attention to them all, getting out of there was his only concern at the moment.
Just when he thought that he may be far enough away he could stop running, a new burst of gunfire sounded off to his right. Before he could change direction to avoid this new group of people, someone ran right into him and knocked him to the ground.
For a moment he was disoriented but quickly snapped out of it when he noticed who it was that had run into him. Tabby, his wife whom he had thought died in the initial onslaught. She wasn’t dead, though. Well, not in the terms that he had thought. For a moment everything seemed to stop as she realized who she had run into and their eyes met. Tears welled up around the edges of her eyes as the gunshots started to get closer.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” she whispered to him. “I don’t want to be this anymore.”
He wiped the tears from her eyes and kissed her on each of her eye lids. “I don’t either, my love.” All the previous thoughts of survival vanished and the hunger wasn’t even anywhere to be seen. All he wanted to do was make the pain that the love of his life was feeling stop.
A group of people with guns entered the clearing and spotted them. “It’s okay, love.” He told her as panic showed on her face. He leaned down and kissed her deeply just as the hunters sighted in on them and pulled the triggers.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
For Zombie Awareness Month 2010:
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Awaiting the Day
(Really short vampire story)
Cortes gazed out over the nearby rooftops. It was still a while before sunrise and he had made his decision. He just wished the day would begin soon so his life could end; just a second was still too much time alone with his own thoughts. He tried to think of other things, things besides Lujuana and Kiyo. He thought of the view from the rooftops in Casares, where he had grown up. This miserable little city could not even compare but he had long ago decided that he could never go back. So much had changed since then, both good and bad; although a lot more bad than good. He decided not to linger on either too much because it always led towards the bad and today was special, today it would all end. Throughout the night he had come to a decision and that decision made him the happiest he’d ever been in…well, it had been too long. It would all start by climbing up to the roof and watching the sun rise. He felt the warmth slowly creeping through the city as dawn approached, the chill air of the night losing its crispness. He felt a pang of fear, merely instinct he told himself, and continued to watch the brightening sky to the East. As the sun finally burst over the horizon he felt pain as the first few layers of his skin turned instantly to ash and slowly started to blow away in a soft breeze. Whatever it was that made the sun destroy his kind started to work on the next few layers, burning deeper (he doubted it was simply the UV rays. He’d been under UV bulbs several times and hadn’t felt any discomfort whatsoever). The pain was excruciating but he relished it. The end was so near.
Time seemed to slow and his mind flickered through his life, all 95 years, despite his earlier decision to try and repress all thoughts. It had been troubled, that much he was sure of. He had slaughtered Lujuana, the woman he loved, when he had first been changed. Untrained and let loose by a master he would never meet. He went ravaging through Spain during the civil war and ended up in the Philippines during World War II always hiding, always hungry, and constantly alone. That was until he had met Kiyo while hiding in the United States. She had taught him how to control his hunger but he was left devastated by the memories of what he had done earlier never completely forgiving himself. Through Kiyo, he found out how few of his kind there were left (thinking, for a long time, that they were the only two). He found out how they had been hunted down and slaughtered throughout the ages because of mistakes like the ones he had made, letting his hunger take control. She had helped him move on despite being unable to forget. His memories that never faded with the passing of time. Now she was gone. He was alone again and it was his fault, now wasn't the time to dwell on that.
He felt the pain slice deeper, starting to tear into vital parts, and was back in the here and now. He wanted so badly to close his eyes and lay back to enjoy his death but the view was so beautiful. He didn’t want to miss the first sunrise he’d seen since 1936. The sun crept slowly but surely upwards, taking his life along the way. To where, he did not know, did not care. As larger pieces of his flesh began to break off and vanish in the breeze, he lost consciousness. Within a few seconds the pillar of ash that had once been a happy and loving husband turned desolate and lonely monster blew away in the increasing breeze. Nobody below in the city would ever know that he even existed. Francisco Cortes along with his anguish and all his woes was no more.