Tag Archive for: drabble

Tick Tock

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by Pauline Yates

The new virus spreading worldwide should be named after a clock. The nosebleeds begin exactly six hours after infection. At seventy-two hours, vision loss occurs. That surprised everyone. Many people died after crashing their cars or falling down stairs. They were lucky, I suppose. Brain rupture occurs bang on ninety-eight hours; a messy, drawn-out death in every case.

Though blind and bleeding, it took me less time to fashion a noose. Three hours and twenty-two minutes, to be exact. I just need a ladder. Frank next door has one. He’s not using it. He finished his noose two hours ago.

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates, author of horror and science fiction, writes dark stories and loves bright sunrises. 

Website: paulineyates.com

The Last Patient

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by Kristin Lennox

Dr Shepherd gently covered the body, the sheet blossoming red over the eyes and mouth. Exhausted, he spoke into a hand-held recorder.

“Patient 47 entered end-stage I-GRID after experiencing continued seizure activity throughout the night. Death was rapid following complete organ failure.”

“This concludes the Thymenozine trials, as Patient 47 was our last viable participant.” The doctor slumped over the table, defeated.

A single tear slid down his cheek and splashed on the shroud, leaving a crimson stain. He touched it, then pressed record again:

“Patient 48 is a white male, 54 years of age, presenting with mid-stage I-GRID symptoms…”

 

Kristin Lennox

Kristin is delighted to have had several drabbles published by Black Hare Press. She’s also a voice actor, and when she’s not talking to herself in her padded room (home studio), she tries to get the voices out of her head and onto the page.

Munch

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by Liam Hogan

It was easy to catch and we willingly caught it. A disease that consumed fat, leaving us pounds, stones, lighter. Spread by saliva, spread by touch; tables of finger food which the infected browsed before everyone else tucked in. Epidemiologists threw up their hands in horror at these super-spread parties, but weren’t they looking slimmer too? Hypocrites, warning of the unknown, of the need to lay down reserves for times of scarcity, times of famine.

They were right about that. Once it ate through our fat, where was its next meal coming from?

Spread by bites, spread by ravenous munchers…

 

Liam Hogan

Liam Hogan is an award-winning, London based, short story writer.

Website: happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk

Breed

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by Louisa King

Lena couldn’t bring herself to swallow any more of them, despite their sugary coating. Even scorched black and long dead, the thought of them scuttling down her throat persisted. But four years of post-flood crop blight and stem rot disease had left little choice in the supermarkets.

She stroked her nascent bump, picturing his tiny growing heart and limbs. It’s protein, she reminded herself. That night, relieved to feel the first gentle fluttering kicks, she finally fell asleep. She didn’t notice those movements inside becoming stronger, or the papery crackling noise of wings unfurling and the frantic clicking of legs.

 

Louisa King

Louisa King lives in Scotland and loves to write tiny stories. Her work has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, Retreat West, Reflex Fiction, and Friday Flash Fiction.

Devoured

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by Katherine Sankey

The winter was the harshest the village had seen. Drifts choked the houses. Blizzards blew. Each home was isolated and fearful of the howling at night. Desperate to feed his wife and child, Bram dared to go out and hunt. He returned late that night with a large wolf, which he had shot near the forge.

Hungrily, they roasted it, devoured it.

Only when dawn touched the corpse did the meat reveal its true form. The fur dissolved and burnt bones shrank, as the blood coated body parts shifted back into the hands, feet, and head of Jed the blacksmith.

 

Katherine Sankey

Katherine Sankey is a Comparative Literature student and freelance writer from the East Midlands. Her work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Flash Point Science Fiction, Every Day Fiction and in a previous Black Hare Press anthology.

Wildwood Eternal

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by Fred W. Barlowe

Dennis stood on the hilltop and surveyed the endless forest. Stars flickered through the darkening twilight. To his left he heard panting and turned to find a man stumbling towards him.

“Do you know…how to get out of…this hell?”

“Hell? This beautiful land?”

“Every night there’s a full moon…” The man quivered. “Wolves attack me… and tear me apart. The next morning, I awake… restored like Prometheus, only to again be thrashed and devoured at night…”

“It may be your hell…” Dennis turned towards the man, eyes glowing yellow, his smile revealing fangs “…but this is my heaven.”

 

Fred W. Barlowe

Fred W. Barlowe’s short stories have appeared in Werewolf Magazine Reborn. He is also a playwright whose work has been seen in Divine Madness, a skit comedy show regularly featured at Necronomicon, Tampa Florida’s Science Fiction convention, now in its fourth decade.

Buddy Double

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by Megan Larson

Crack. Snap. Squelch.

Bones break. Intestines writhe into place as I take on the small dog’s shape.

“Buddy?” Lydia’s call echoes.

I’ve studied them for weeks. Buddy wouldn’t bark, wouldn’t linger. No, he’d run straight into her arms.

So, I run.

Lydia waits with the door open as I emerge from the woods. “Let’s go to bed.” She welcomes me home, leaving poor Buddy behind.

In bed I take Buddy’s place beside Lydia. Feel her warmth. Smell her sweetness. Hear her heartbeat. Thump…thump…thump.

“I love you, Buddy.”

Buddy loves you. You’ll join him too.

My jaws widen.

Crack. Snap. Squelch.

 

Megan Larson

Megan Larson lives in Indiana with her husband, adorable dog and treacherous parrot. Follow her on Twitter. 

Twitter: @MegtheAuthor

Lighthouse

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by Kat Leeshue

Upon the rocky shores stood a lighthouse.

A beacon. I crawl onto the shores first, leaving my scales for the pearly skin the men love so much. The waves try to draw me back, but to go back means starvation—and I will not die with an empty belly.

With new legs, I stand and look back at the ocean. Heads pierce the ocean’s veil, their eyes watching as I climb the rocky shore. At the top, the fishing village flicks their lights on. My sisters come to stand with me, naked and waiting for the word.

“Hunt,” I order.

 

Kat Leeshue

Located in the semi-cold tundra of Canada, Kat Leeshue lives off of iced coffees and Taylor Swift karaoke. When she isn’t writing and reading under the cover of darkness, she’s a Chaos Coordinator of tiny humans. At night, she bullet journals to keep herself (somewhat) organised.

Instagram: @katleeshue

In Plain Sight

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by Kristin Lennox

Charlie peeked through the kitchen door: his mother was at the stove, humming, stirring a tantalising garlic tomato sauce, by the aroma. Sneaking up behind her, Charlie zapped her with the taser.

Duct-taped to a chair, the creature thrashed, flashing rapidly through forms like a vintage home movie: Charlie’s mother, Grandma Ruth, Mr Bradford from next-door… Charlie could feel tendrils probing his memories, searching for that one image that would earn his trust. He zapped the creature again–it sagged, caught somewhere between Aunt Louise and Weird Al.

“Know how I knew?” Charlie offered. “My mom can’t cook for shit.”

 

Kristin Lennox

Kristin is delighted to have had several drabbles published by Black Hare Press. She’s also a voice actor, and when she’s not talking to herself in her padded room (home studio), she tries to get the voices out of her head and onto the page.

Belt and Bear

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by Ann Wuehler

I shivered inside my human skin. My mother fell to the floor, my father bending over her, his belt in his fist. She took several blows, hiding her face, quiet, not even grunting as my father would strike harder if she whimpered.

My face grew a snout. My body bent, locked into place. Fur sprouted from my skin. My teeth grew long, my fingernails became claws. My mother told me to stop, but the bear in me attacked my father, killed him and partially devoured him.

She screamed, her grief a strange mystery to the daughter who had saved her.

 

Ann Wuehler

Ann Wuehler has written five novels: Aftermath: Boise, Idaho, Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, the House on Clark Boulevard, Oregon Gothic, the Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus. “The Blackburne Lighthouse” appears in Brigid Gate’s Crimson Bones anthology. “Invisible Greta” appears in the Whistle Pig, Volume 15.