Halloween Writing Challenge #8

During the month of October, we at Danse Macabre have created special treats to be served for to enjoy at your leisure.

Three Words.

One Picture.

What do you see?

A story? A poem? A memory from Halloween Past or Present?

Use the words, twist the words, dress them up and make them yours!

Pingback here and let us know how it went.

We’re dying to see what you’ve created!

included is a music clip that I hope will inspire you!

amm

Pantry

Missing

Doll

Halloween Writing Challenge #7

Let’s shake it up a bit!

I have posted this clip- here’s a description: ATMOSPHERIC GOTHIC HORROR READING MUSIC | H.P Lovecraft, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe

I let it play and then I wrote the first thing that popped into my head.

I went for turns of phrase and tried to capture little images too.

What will you see?

The Next Chapter

A.M. Moscoso

Hand to page

from

word to eye

the writer’s nightmare

is mine tonight.

Will I wake

will it end

will I ever sleep again?

The Writer’s Nightmare

is inside of my head

and it will feast on my fear

until I am cold and dead.

Am I gone

am I a ghost

am I just a neglected

and forgotten corpse?

Book in hand

trapped in a scream

am I bound to be

the Writer’s Next Dream?

amm

Halloween Writing Challenge #6

During the month of October, we at Danse Macabre have created special treats to be served for to enjoy at your leisure.

Three Words.

One Picture.

What do you see?

A story? A poem? A memory from Halloween Past or Present?

Use the words, twist the words, dress them up and make them yours!

Pingback here and let us know how it went.

We’re dying to see what you’ve created!

Snow

Footprints

Dog

I’ve gone ahead and played along and here is my response to the three word prompt- what will yours be?

Footprints

A.M. Moscoso

In the dark and cold kitchen in the last house on La Pierre Drive, crammed into a corner behind the swinging door, Ivy Plum is listening to her family, her Father, her Mother and her two sisters dying in their bedrooms.

They are coughing and wheezing and gurgling like raging creeks during a spring flood and her Father is calling out in agony for his dog Prince that he had when he was just a little boy.

She clasps her phone to her chest and try as she might, she cannot open her hands, they are locked over her phone and they will not open no matter how hard she tries

Her family is dying above her head and Ivy Plum is too terrified to move, to scream or to push herself out of the corner to the backdoor across the kitchen that is open and is inviting her, it is begging her, to run.

Ivy Plum is trapped in the Hell inside of her head where all she can here is her Father crying out in fear for his dog to help him, to come right now and help them all.

“Come on Prince, come on boy!” Ivy hears her Father is begging his long dead dog, his first and always best friend. ” Good boy. Come on boy.”

She tries to unfold her hands and as she pushes them against her chest she takes a breath and she falls forward. Her hands fall away from each other. One hand is still clutching her phone. She nearly cries out in relief but remembers to not make a sound. All that matters now is- she moved!

Ivy braces he shoulder against the wall and holds herself up, she pushes the door away with her free hand and she walks slowly because she is dizzy and everytime she turns she sees stars but she takes one step and another and another and she is halfway across the kitchen to the backdoor when she hears a thump on the stairs.

It’s a gentle thump, soft, padded.

Someone is coming down the stairs, someone is trying now to take each step slowly because, Ivy knows-

someone is looking for her.

Ivy looks at the back door and the phone in her hand and she keeps moving until she reaches the door and the cold icy air hits her in the face and she takes a long deep breath and tries to scream for help and then she see it all

this terrible night is going to show her everything.

It shows her the tracks in the snow that lead into the kitchen and she turns her head slowly and sees the puddles of water, the melted snow go through the kitchen and out the kitchen door into the hallway and then

she sees the bloody footprints coming into the kitchen and her eyes obediently follow them into the corner behind the kitchen door.

She goes to the counter and she looks out of the kitchen window above it and into the dark and endless snowy night.

Still looking out the window, she lets the phone fall from her grasp into the sink so that she could wash her bloody hands.

She picks up the bloody knife that is sitting in the bottom of the sink next to her phone and she washes it too…

because she has too, because she always does.

Ivy hears the kitchen door whisper open and she hears the clicking of dog paws behind her. Prince growls and she can’t hear it as much a she can feel it and she waits from him to close in on her.

Sometimes it seems to take years before he jumps and sinks his teeth into the back her skull and bites down and begins to tear her apart.

She wonders, as she always does, if every night in her Hell will be like this.

In the end, she thinks, it probably will be.

Halloween Writing Challenge #5

Here’s a different kind of challenge for you to try!

I ran across a prompt that was a bit macabre, so I gave it a try.

A man wakes up in an electric chair ( you can sub a grave, a body bag or in the gallows )

In case you’re curious I’ve posted my response here- and as you will see I put my own spin on the prompt

and you should feel free to do the same.

amm

The Chair

A.M. Moscoso

Maybe, sixteen year old Thomas Gilder thought when his heart slowed down enough for him to think clearly, if I just relax and close my eyes I can figure how I got here and how I can get out because if I got into this I can get out too- that’s logical, or science or something like that right?

His hands, were clammy and sweaty and cold and they grasped the smooth arms of the chair with less force then he realized because he was very close to passing out. He bit his lips to keep from calling for his Mother. She’d be so disappointed in him if she knew where he was. He could not- would not do that to her. He would not call for her like he did when he was a little kid waking up terrified from a nightmare.

At least not right now.

Thomas turned his head and looked at the little window with the pale blue curtain drawn across it that was to his left

and he wondered why the room was painted pale green and why it didn’t really match the curtains in the window and why

he was sitting in this electric chair and how long it was going to be before the Executioner realized he was here .

Thomas looked up at the clock and watched the second hand crawl from one number to the next- not that he could read the clock. Most kids his age can’t but it gave him something to think about and when his thoughts got back on the Tommy Gilder train he made himself remember the walk down here, the instructions, and the RULES.

Maybe that was the key. If he could remember the short walk that brought him here maybe he could avoid the long walk ahead.

What ever he came up with, he had to snap himself out of this nightmare before the face appeared in the little window and saw him.

It was all over for him at that point, wasn’t it? Or maybe it really ended for him when he decided to heck with it and decided to not follow the RULES.

Thomas wasn’t bad kid, well- he knew if he had made a few better life choices he wouldn’t be here waiting for that curtain to be moved to the side and for Hell to rain down on him.

There had to be something he could do, maybe say he was sorry and that he’d never screw off and he’d promise on a stack of bibles to follow THE RULES but before he could put his thoughts into order and choose one of those flimsy options his out of control brain had come up with, the curtain in the small window opened and then the face of the Executioner appeared and it was indeed the face of his doom and a painful molten rain of words did indeed fall down upon him.

” Son of a bitch! Take your kid to work day. What can go wrong they said. You only work for the State. None of the dumbasses that nagged me to do this asked me what I do for the state.”

She took a breath which meant she was nowhere near finished yelling.

“What did I tell you about wandering off? This isn’t a playground. I work here. I told you what the RULES were. So tell me. How the Hell did you get in there?

Chin to his chest, Thomas held up his Mothers keycard.

” Forget asking me for the car or for the password to WiFi at home which I am changing and NEVER going to give you. Forget ever hoping that I will forget this stunt. Get over to the door NOW.”

Thomas got up from the electric chair, he bowed his head and he walked slowly to the door.

When the door opened and he saw the Executioner- (or as she was known at home ” Mom” ) standing there with how miserable his fate was going to be written all over hear face, he knew his punishment would indeed be a fate worse then death.