As some of you may know, I am hard at work revising/editing/polishing my first urban fantasy/supernatural novel. I wrote a short flash fiction piece for a Wisconsin radio contest set in the world of my full-length novel a couple weeks ago. I don’t want to say too much more, because I don’t want to spoil the full story for anyone.
That said, this short story centers around one of the vampire villains (though not the antagonist) in my story and a side character that may or may not appear in the full-length novels. It took me about a week to write/edit/polish for the contest, and I like how it turned out. I have many of my writer friends to thank for helping me edit – and you know who you are!
At some point before the year is over, I hope to be able to write some blog posts (complete with photos!) of my two-month travel experience in Europe. As you might imagine, it was harder than I thought it would be to have regular access to computers on which I could type up blog reports of my adventures, so I gave up after one attempt. I apologize. But I am in the process of organizing my photos so I can put them on the internet somewhere for all to enjoy.
** One more thing – if you haven’t already checked out my last post, and you are interested in winning a free YA book, please go read it and leave a comment! I have read the book myself (Jesi Lea Ryan, the author, is my writing partner) and it was one of the few that I just could not put down once I started reading it. So go check it out!
Without further ado, here is my flash fiction horror story! Feel free to comment and share!
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I watch with a cold sense of dread as the sun slowly sets below the horizon beyond the glass wall. The relief I felt while the sun’s rays warmed my skin drains away with the darkening sky. The glass already begins to cool beneath my palm.
They come at night. He comes at night.
Hell has come to earth in the last six months. Ever since the vampires crawled out of the shadows. Cities are surrounded by walls and fences, trapping us inside. They can’t come inside our homes, but most people didn’t find out until it was too late. It only takes one to destroy a family. We’re food to them.
Cattle.
I tried to leave once, to find some kind of resistance. But I was caught. They put me in this room, glass walls on three sides, one door, no other exit. I can see the sun, but I can’t feel the wind, the rain. A strange torture just for me, because I was unlucky enough to catch his eye.
I turn away from the last dregs of light and cross my bare, starch-white room to the rigid couch. I sit, watching the darkness grow behind my glass walls. I don’t bother turning a light on. It won’t save me. It won’t stop him from coming.
I wait, twenty minutes, an hour, more. Maybe he won’t come tonight. Maybe he’ll give up.
The creak of the door makes me flinch.
I listen to the footsteps without turning around to look at the door.
“Angela, my dear.” His voice sounds oily and slick.
I rise and turn to face him.
“President Vix,” I say sarcastically, taking in the entirely black suit-and-tie getup on his slender frame, the greasy black hair hanging about his pale face, and the fiercely golden-yellow eyes.
“Please, call me Eric,” he replies, as he always does, with a fanged smile. I say nothing, so he continues to speak. “Are you ready to accept my little offer tonight?”
A harsh burst of sarcastic laughter escapes me. There is nothing little about his offer to make me one of them, to leave my humanity behind, to be his.
“Why do you ask when you know you can force me to accept anyway?” I already know the answer, I’ve been asking for two months.
A blink, and he’s next to me. The door slams shut, and I tense as fear floods my belly, setting my nerves on fire. He never comes that close. The toxic ripeness of fruit left in the sun too long wafts into my nose and I try not to gag.
“Don’t you want to feel the breeze on your face again?” he whispers in my ear, his voice escalating. “Feel the delicate weight of a snowflake on your skin or the lingering heat of a scorching summer’s night?”
“But not the sun.” I tremble, cursing myself for showing weakness. He never shouts. “I’ll die in this glass cage before you take the sun away from me.”
He spins me around and clutches me close to his chest, his fingers biting into my flesh. I struggle, but it’s like being wrapped in heavy metal chains. I stamp on his foot but he just laughs.
I swallow my fear and add, “If you turn me, I will burn in the sun.”
I don’t think he cares anymore. When he bites, it hurts.
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