horror

Right? Right?!

/ Liz H-H / 18 Comments

 

Graffiti-covered tunnel, stairs curving upward into light

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge (07/07/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!

***  

Inspired by subterranean graffiti below the family’s old Victorian, he lived in the basement, coming up only to grab some food for himself, or cook a meal on the rare occasions when his parents were home. His sisters fled to school and beyond, and when his parents became housebound, the girls’ annual visits dwindled and ceased. An uncurious caretaker watched over his father, keeping him fed and bathed and toileted.

And Charles finally, mostly free. Continue reading →

Nightshift Vision

/ Liz H-H / 13 Comments
Red sunrise over ocean horizon

Source: Matt Fraser

The challenge? Write a story in 6 sentences, no more & no less, and if you’d like, share your own creation or just visit and comment on others’ ideas, with GirlieOnTheEdge, Denise. The prompt is “PETRICHOR”, and here’s where you join the party:  Six Sentence Stories 

The soft pad of toughened feet on damp forest floor is the rhythm that drives the night onward.

Animals hush at her sensed presence then resume their own individual calls and clicks, but only after the shrubbery ceases to dance at her swift passage; scents of the otherworld momentarily mask the steady, calming perfume of petrichor. Continue reading →

Night Shift Parts 1 and 2

/ Liz H-H / 20 Comments
Overlook of a harbor, light clouds & blue sky

©Ayr/Gray

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt. The Unicorn Challenge (05/26/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!

This two-parter is a snippet of a longer story that needed editing. Hope it pleases!

Night Shift Part 1

Sophie gazed out the kitchen window. The small harbor town below was glazed in apricot and rose, as the sun climbed the sky. She sipped her second cup of coffee.

Taking a sip of my own, I turned to Sophie. “What happened?”

“There was a collision: a single engine plane that shouldn’t have been flying at night. You know those people who can afford to fly to the remote lake properties often have more money than good judgment.” She spat those final words. Continue reading →

So, this is happening…

/ Liz H-H / 3 Comments
Kittelson troll boy with a cauldron

Hugo, in the early days, as seen by Kittelson

I have the great pleasure of being allowed to sit in the Author’s Chair in the Saddle Up Saloon over at the Carrot Ranch. It’s headquartered somewhere in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and around the world, where Rough Writers play with weekly prompts, poetry challenges, and the occasional Online Karaoke. Cowpoke or not, all are welcome to play and/or read.

My time in this week’s Author’s Chair is a bit of dark humor about a hungry giant, some carelessly spunky spelunkers, and the townsfolk nestled in the valley below (based on a Six Sentence Story that like Hugo, got a bit larger). Here’s an excerpt to start, or go on ahead and belly right up to the bar at the Saloon for the full text, and an audio of me reading the tale. Once upon a time:

Giant Problem Solved by Liz Husebye Hartmann

(Trigger alert: Not a tale for the wee ones)

Hugo’s belly pangs rumbled down the darkening mountainside above Heffinger Hollow. He was sorely tempted to nibble on a half-cooked morsel or two of the spunky spelunkers that frequented Carbuncle Caverns. This particular group of spelunkers had surprised the village by sneaking in to the Carbuncle and setting out to explore without a guide. They’d zigged when they should have zagged on that seventh leg of the descent, and had fallen deep into the bowels of the lowest cavern of Carbuncle.

This had proved deadly for them, but put their corpses within easy reach of Hugo…

But a bit of history, first…”

[Please click here to continue]

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2021)