Redneck Rumba

Redneck Rumba

Not breathing, I paused, door at my back. They shambled across the cold stone floor, two lines of them, feet beating a ragged tattoo.

They’d seen me!

They turned as one staggering in my direction. The putrid stench was choking and twenty disintegrating faces regarded me curiously.

I hated being new at zombie line dancing.

55 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for Lisa McCourt-Hollar's 55 word challenge

Perspective

Add caption

Perspective

Four hundred and seventeen years, condemned to this eyrie; shunned, shamed and static. I see them.

Power

They slaughtered thousands. In the battle for the city, spears, oil and arrows cut them down like corn before a scythe.

Progress

They poisoned hundreds. Industrial filth,  gasping children, lungs filled with tar and soot.

Prosperity

Now, streets not safe to walk, feral gangs prey on those forced to venture out.

People

And they call me ugly.

75 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for the SVW Flash! Friday challenge

Stairway to Heaven

Photo Source

Stairway to Heaven

His calves burned. His breath came in raw ragged gasps. Blood of a thousand falls slicked his palms and streaked the dank walls he leaned on for support. One bruised, aching foot after another he screwed up the feeble vestiges of his remaining courage and trudged towards the sweet shining promise of the light. He barely dared number the remaining treads lest they prove a cruel uncountable Escher trick of his rheumy, sweat stained eyes. He yearned for the surcease of a cool breeze, unpolluted by his own ever present stench; the sound of the open, not echoes of his own desperate progress, the sights soaring aloft on the wings of a distant horizon, not sight of more rough hewn walls. Soft bludgeons of sleep battered his resolve and, weeping, defeated, he fell before them. Awake, crushed beneath the weight of familiar darkness, he once more began his allotted climb.

150 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for Angela Goff’s ever excellent Visual Dare challenge

Salt Water Wishes

© Renee Homan Heath

Salt Water Wishes

The silky sand slipped seductively between bare toes, relief after the

rough wooden slats.

Approaching the water’s edge, hands shaking, she unstoppered the phial.

Flashback visions of his smug, departing face stiffened her resolve.

Murmuring a garbled Norn prayer, learnt at Grandmother’s knee, she consigned the seven precious drops to the waves. It was done.

Later, sitting on the dunes, the freshening breeze fluttering her sundress like a passing sigh, she scanned the azure breakers for sight of him.

A salt stained hand fell on her shoulder and she gazed up into sea grey eyes.

“Hello Mairi. You summoned me?”

100 words

@nickjohns999

This story was written for Rochell Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers’ Challenge

Click here for the British folklore inspiration for the tale.