Writing Group: Short Story: Horror

The prompt this week was to write a short horror story. I don’t typically write horror so this was definitely a challenge but I am not unhappy with the way this turned out. This short story has been workshopped a bit and cleaned up – unlike most of my writing group pieces. Happy start to spooky season!

Trigger Warning: Gore and blood

Linen & Blood

I awoke to blood beneath my nails. Dried blood that smelled of iron. Flaking blood the color or rust. Blood that, when it had been fresh, had left sticky streaks down my snow white sheets. Blood that was not mine, for my body was unmarked by cut or scrape. Skin still as pale and smooth as when I had rested my head upon my pillow at dusk the eve before. 

My room, my space that was once awash in airy whites and delicate lace that blows in the chill breeze from the open window is now saturated in color. The color of life, the color of death, the same color that stains my nails, streaks down my sheets. The room should reek of death, should smell of copper and rotten blood but to me it smells of success. 

I smile, a sharp grin so unlike the demure things I used to show the world; that was the smile I gave when I was prey. Dark, still slightly damp blood coats my lips, licking, I taste the salty, metallic tang. Who I was before would have been disgusted but this me is delighted. Excited to have shown myself what I can do. 

Crawling from the four poster bed my nightgown of linen and lace falls to my feet. Oh how at one time my demon used that white to pretend that I was still pure. Now my grin grows as I walk across polished oak boards, through still wet pools of cold blood. The hem of my gown stained a deep red that crawls upward, up the thin linen that was never a good shield. 

My flaxen hair, that once fluttered around me as if a pale golden halo in even the slightest breeze, falls heavy upon my shoulders. The fair now matted, stained crimson. I like this change, perhaps I shall keep the red. 

The door, that thing I oft wished could have protected me from the demon that visited in the night, hangs wide. For once I am glad for the gaping hole, it allows me to see, to view the dead upon the floor. The one who had a key. Black eyes now dull where once they shone with glee at my distress. My personal demon that would haunt from the blue hue of dusk until the pale hint of dawn. Their once hidden horns now on full display. The one who made the mistake of missing a visit the last full moon. They preferred to dance, dance the night away at a ball. 

I went walking among the fields that night. My white linen and lace was stained with mud then. They call it the monster of the moors. Everyone feared it but I knew the truth. It was my savior either through death then or through allowing me to find my own claws. I met it without a tremble. This was not a true monster; I know what truly makes a monster. A single bite and then it fled as the hunt for it ran past with torches bright, ignoring me in the shifting shadows. 

Last night was the full moon and my demon was foolish enough to visit. Opening a door they never should have in the first place. Their screams were music, their flesh shredded so neatly beneath my claws, their blood was sweet on my tongue, and now they are cool at my feet. I step over them, out, away. They are forgotten, left to rot as I learn to dance beneath the sun, beneath the moon, beneath the stars, a frightened thing no longer. Now my own. 

My life started when I awoke to blood beneath my nails.

Thank you KW Photography for allowing me to use your wonderful photos!

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