Halloween Microfiction: The Season by T.C. Mill

Editor’s Note: This story contains knife and blood play. Read accordingly please.

“The Season”
by T.C. Mill

This time of year finds them on the deep porch of the century-old farmhouse. It always will, even if they’re here in another century.

From under the overhang, they watch the rain fall. Leaves fall with it, beaten copper and winking gold coins dropping to the wet-darkened gravel drive. For an autumn day, it’s warm, and the porch is filled not with damp or chill but the sound: rattling and swelling like gusts of hungry breath. The pressure of the house looms above it like another thundercloud.

The last roses, pink as rare meat, have their heads bowed, heavy petals plucked by needles of rain. Out past the garden, along the tree-lined drive, it falls in such thick sheets that the world seems motionless. As if it has always been this way and always will be, seasons frozen in a silver amber.

They both know better.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: The Season by T.C. Mill

Halloween Microfiction: Playing With Your Food by Sonni de Soto

Editor’s Note: If you are afraid of spiders you may want to skip this story though I hope you don’t as it’s a wonderful piece.

“Playing With Your Food”
by Sonni de Soto

You hate the gasps and the stares as people around us scuttle away. But I don’t. Whether in the shadows or the streets, I’ve been the boogeyman too long for it to bother me. I smile, flashing my fangs at the full and frightened street, the long curved lengths sharp against my bottom lip, and blink innocently. All six, pitch black eyes. Scenting their collective fear combine and swell, my joints shake, the sensitive hairs along my limbs at attention, as my articulated legs twitch as if to pounce. I lick my lips and feel my heart race.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: Playing With Your Food by Sonni de Soto

Halloween Microfiction: Read This and Tell Me What You Think by Eric Del Carlo

“Read This and Tell Me What You Think”
by Eric Del Carlo

Harris held the sheaf out to me, the shivering pages betraying his anxiety. I blinked, nonplussed.

“Read this…” he said, a raw breathlessness in his voice, “and tell me what you think about it.”

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: Read This and Tell Me What You Think by Eric Del Carlo

Halloween Microfiction: The Change by A.C. Quill

“The Change”
by A.C. Quill

At midnight I was out on the hillside, drumming my fingers and toes and waiting to change. Not wearing a lot: a greatcoat, no gloves, and feet bare in my walking boots. Less to retrieve, later.

But that night, nothing happened. I rocked on the balls of my feet trying to entice the change, to spark that shift that topples me forwards. I wanted my springy legs and my sharp nose. I longed to be careening between the trees in Tentsmuir Forest.  God, I was impatient! A crotchety middle-aged bitch…

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: The Change by A.C. Quill

Halloween Microfiction: The Skeleton Man by Chloe Robbins

“The Skeleton Man”
by Chloe Robbins

The split-faced woman can’t believe her luck at finding a skeleton sitting so pretty in the light of a woodland campfire. Luck, or perhaps fate. Her name is Crystal and she isn’t from around here. She’s never heard of The Skeleton Man, though he’s famous. It’s said to be the most ghoulishly delicious sight, watching him invite his own bones outside himself for a dance. No blood or crassness, just a skeleton waltzing with its flesh. Lonely together.

But Crystal doesn’t know any of this. All she knows is that he’s left his bones sitting out for the night, his skin folded like laundry before the fire. His skull ripe as a berry for the picking. For the stealing.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: The Skeleton Man by Chloe Robbins

Halloween Microfiction: Daddy’s little Pumpkin by Sassafras Lowrey

“Daddy’s little Pumpkin”
by Sassafras Lowrey

Travis woke with a start – they hadn’t gotten to bed until just a few hours before . The benefit at the bar had ran late, Daddy had given them permission to stay up past bedtime but they were feeling it this morning.  Travis remembered when they were younger when staying up all night flogging cuties and flirting in the dungeon would leave them waking up exhilarated, reaching for the phone to see if anyone from the night before had texted. But now, Travis was exhausted, neck stiff, back sore. Yet they couldn’t help a bouncy sort of excitement pushing through  their exhaustion. Today was a day that they had been looking forward to for weeks. Daddy  had told them to make sure that they had the day off of work, and not to make any plans, that they were going to have a full date day, but then Daddy wouldn’t tell them anything about what they were going to do.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: Daddy’s little Pumpkin by Sassafras Lowrey

Halloween Microfiction: The Children of the Forest by Michael M. Jones

“The Children of the Forest”
by Michael M. Jones

In the Brambles, it’s always October. A full moon hangs orange and bloated in a cloud-streaked night sky, dry leaves crunch underfoot, and the encroaching nip of winter competes with bonfire smoke in the air. Two Faerie queens lay claim to this odd little patch of land between the Autumn and Winter realms, but the Brambles swears allegiance to no one save its own master, the Wicker King.

The Brambles is a place of tricks and treats, shadows and secrets, death and rebirth. It’s the jump-scare, the nervous laughter, the stolen kiss. This is where the monster under the bed retreats in the daytime, where the things which go bump in the night go to lift a drink and trade boasts. It’s where sex and fear walk hand-in-hand, accompanied by their spectral children and unspoken wishes.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: The Children of the Forest by Michael M. Jones

Halloween Microfiction: Reflections Left Behind by Natasha Leullier

*editor’s note: Please be advised that this story contains blood play. We realize this is a hard limit for some people and wanted to advise  our readers accordingly.

“Reflections Left Behind”
by Natasha Leullier

Sandy’s puckered moon face and firefly eyes reflected in her great-grandmother’s mirror. Her hair and dress were crisp with dried seawater, and orange oak leaves plastered her Mackintosh coat. She held the telescope against her chest and smiled at the framed photo of William sitting behind her on the writing desk. She would keep watch for the missing whalers now that the craven lighthouse keeper had fled along with every other villager. Through the miracle of the looking glass, they were side by side again, she in bedraggled attire and William with his waxed mustache and special occasion stovepipe hat. The flame above Sandy’s one candle danced, begging for its life, and expired. The world became silver; the Nor’easter offering its own sickly light. But it was the tide smashing against the shingles that made Sandy shiver and a great fist upon the cottage that made her shake.

If the storm was intent on claiming her, she might as well return to the docks and lead the confrontation. Her heart pounded throughout her body, throbbing against her temples, fingertips, and even the intimate nook between her legs. How she could think of such things in the storm… And yet, the fear, her bewildered courage, made her long for William’s touch.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: Reflections Left Behind by Natasha Leullier

Halloween Microfiction: Moonrise by Rachel Bender

“Moonrise”
by Rachel Bender

The embers of the day were dying by the time I kindled the fire. Surrounded by darkness and by the rattle of fallen leaves, I cupped my hands around that fragile heat, coaxing it to life with my breath. It leapt between my palms, eager, hungry.

Tonight was the night.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: Moonrise by Rachel Bender