Night Shade

It’s past one when I find her. I’ve been to midnight mass and, by the time the priest wished everyone a merry Christmas, it had started to snow.

I nip out the back to collect my cardboard box and sleeping bag from behind one of the new gravestones, and that’s when I see her, pale skin drained of blood, lips tinged with blue from the cold. Her clothes are inappropriate for the time of year: a mini skirt, crop top, bare legs and Doctor Martens. Snowflakes have gathered in her hair, but they’ve failed to cover up the bloody mess of her neck.

I shiver. He’s back then, creating his growing army of followers. Night Shade, the local drug dealer and vampire. I manage to avoid him, being a devout Catholic, but I pray to God that she may lie forever with unopened eye.

Kim M. Russell, 3rd June 2024

Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It’s Monday, and at the dVerse Poets Pub it’s time for Prosery with Melissa, forever with unopened eye. Yes, we are riffing on Edgar Allan Poe to create very short pieces of prose or flash fiction that tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and a limit of 144 words. Somewhere within our stories we must include given lines from a poem without changing word order or adding any words; however we may add or change punctuation.

Melissa has given us historical background to this well-known writer, as well as extracts from some of his poems.

For today’s Prosery prompt, Melissa has taken lines from Poe’s poem ‘Sleeper’:

‘I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye’.

36 thoughts on “Night Shade”

  1. You’re so good at horror stories, Kim. This one sent a chill up my spine.

    Snowflakes have gathered in her hair, but they’ve failed to cover up the bloody mess of her neck.

    I can see her.

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  6. We are on the same page here. I love “Snowflakes have gathered in her hair, but they’ve failed to cover up the bloody mess of her neck.” so effect. I wasn’t quite expecting that. Nice shivery tale.

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  14. One time when I was tripping on mushrooms, I had a vision where I saw good and evil actors on the world stage; immortals, who battle for or against the salvation of souls. I guess you could call them vampires, but I think The Catholic Church calls them angels and demons.

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