Wednesday 17 July 2019

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 116

This week's picture prompt is concept art created by Gary Tonge for a psychological horror video game for CAPCOM. He has some incredible art - he also has a page over at Deviant Art which has some amazing images on it. 

There is definitely a spooky feel about this picture, and that is what I went with. I like how this one great. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.



The Forgotten

He stepped carefully across the hallway; he didn’t want to be heard. They wouldn’t be happy he was sneaking around downstairs, it wasn’t allowed after lights out.

He heard a creak from the upstairs landing, and froze. Would there be another? Was someone awake or was the house just settling for the night?

There was another. He rushed to the wall, hoping the shadows near the stairwell would shield him from view. He could hear his mother’s voice as she floated down the stairs in one of her fairytale evening gowns.

“We won’t be late this evening, I want to be back earlier. Teddy has his gala tomorrow night and I’ve still some prep to do.”

“Yes, dear.”

Teddy’s father trailed his mother in bowtie and tails – or his penguin suit as Teddy called it. They were going to the opening of the museum tonight. His father had grumbled about having to go but mother had insisted.

He watched them float out of the front door.

He missed them. His gala had been cancelled as had much of his life for several months after they had gone out that night. This was his only way of seeing them now.

He crept out of his hiding place and stood in the middle of the entrance hall, still staring at the front door. When he turned another figure was on the stairs, a young boy. He stifled a cry.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Oswald.”

“Oswald? You don’t live here!”

“Yes, I do, I’ve been here a while. I’ve been watching you.”

“Liar, I know everyone who lives here, all the new boys that are brought here and you’re not one of them.”

“Why don’t you ever speak to them?”

“Who?”

“Your parents. You watch them go almost every night, but you never call to them.”

“You can see them too?”

“Of course I can. I saw them my first night here. And I saw you, too, watching them. You’re Teddy Rosenblatt.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Everyone knows the name of the founder of Lost Boys Orphanage.”

“Orphanage? What are you talking about? This is a boarding school.”

“Yes, your uncle did turn it into a school after your parents died, that’s true, so he could keep on working and look after you at the same time. But then when you grew up and he died, you turned it into an orphanage, for other boys that had lost their parents.”

“Grew up? What are you talking about? I’m still a boy.”

“You are in your current form, yes. I think that’s because you lost your parents then, and your heart broke, something you never fully recovered from.”

“What do you mean, current form?”

“You don’t know, do you? You’re a ghost, Teddy, like your parents. You died. That’s why you should call out to them, you can join them now.”

Teddy looked down at his body and suddenly the memory of his life came to him; all the years that had gone by and how he had finally succumbed to a lung infection. He looked at Oswald.

“And you can see me?” 

“Of course I can. I’m a ghost too.”

“So you appear as a boy because you lost your parents as a child, too?”

“Oh no, I lost my parents when I was a baby. I died as a boy, here in this house when war came and it was bombed. The upstairs ceiling fell in.”

Teddy looked at the staircase. The luscious carpet, embossed satin wallpaper and oak banister rail melted away, revealing the bare bones of what was left of a derelict building. Panic rose in him.

“Am I too late? Will they be back tomorrow night?”

“They’ll keep coming back until you join them.”

“And what about you? When do you get to leave?”

“Oh I don’t. I’m one of the forgotten. No one knows I’m here.”



14 comments :

  1. Thats a very emotional piece, Miranda. Beautifully done.

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    1. Thank you! Yes, it sort of wrote itself.

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    2. Don't you just love it when they do that.

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  2. I loved this weeks prompt photo. Here is my take in my story The Envoy Hope you like it.

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  3. Mansion by Terry Brewer, @stories2121

    I have memories of this place. None of them fond. I started work here a few weeks after I arrived. The fourth daughter among ten children and my mum, bless her, knew I was different from the others. I’d never find happiness in County Clare. Or anywhere else in Ireland for that matter. I was the one for whom the money was spent for passage to New York. The St. Louis. I had a relative, a cousin of some distance, who got me my flat and who got me my job.

    The flat was on the fourth floor of a tenement. I shared the small room with three other girls. The “toilet” out back. Dank and dreary. But it was not County Clare and it was not Ireland. And I blessed my mum each night before turning to sleep.

    The job was in this place. Scullery maid. Five-and-a-half days a week.

    After a year or so, I was promoted to undermaid. Upstairs. Much easier work. Soon the Master’s son fell in love with me and soon the Master’s son’s friends fell in love with me. I was dismissed, told I was lucky to get a week’s pay “in lieu of notice.” A disposable lass.

    Now I was back. I was by then in a smaller studio apartment, still on the Lower East Side but not quite as close to the docks and the river. The new family in the old house would need to repair the dereliction after the prior owner, my prior Master, had lost everything in a swindle involving a railroad in Wyoming or Montana or somewhere I would never visit. His son, of course, no longer had any friends even when he was sober and even were I inclined to have one of them fall in love with me again.

    No, the mansion had been run-down. It sat on 28th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues.

    Now I was the housekeeper. I ruled the roost. I knew what would happen. Soon the Master would fall in love with me. I would not be discharged. The Master’s wife was in love with me. And I with her.

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    1. Interesting and different. I like it. Thanks for joining.

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  4. This was such a spooky fun one! Here's my entry

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    1. Brilliant entry. I can't comment on your site. Really enjoyed that. Thanks for entering.

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  5. Gransom Prison
    By: David Lunn Milburn
    @DavisLunnThe3rd

    It was late Autumn, 1899. I was a junior reporter at the London Police Gazette, having recently been fired from the London Police Force for conduct unbecoming. I considered that judgement arbitrary and unfair but needed a steady wage, so I moved on. I still had a few friends on the force which my editor felt might be of value. One of them informed me, over a tankard of ale, that Gransom Prison was being closed, to be replaced by a modernized version to the West of the city. The turn of the century was nigh and London was still seen, by some, as lagging behind the other great cities of the world.

    Gransom was tucked deep in the East end docks, barely noticed any more. Made almost entirely of wood, three stories tall with a barbed-wire covered wall surrounding the building, it was most famous for its executions. I proposed to my editor that a write-up on the place would prove popular and he agreed. My informant wangled the key to the front door and let me in. Told me to lock up when I was done and get the key back to him later.

    Cold and bleak as the Moors, I explored the upper level first and then, slowly made my way down to the basement. The whole place wreaked of piss and sweat and as I stood looking up at the trap door, it was easy to imagine the bodies of the condemned men swinging there, necks snapped like twigs, the creaking of stretched rope mingling with the Padre’s prayer from above. The prisoner’s last meal would be held in his cell down here, then he would face the ignominy of having to climb the two flights of stairs to meet his maker. This particular routine was a hold over from the glorious days of Madame Guillotine. I decided to talk to the new jail-designers and suggest they change that gruesome tradition.

    As the door clanked shut behind me and I began my walk back to normal life, I resolved to be wary of ‘conduct unbecoming’ from this day forward, more especially any behaviour which might land me on Death Row in any prison, modern or otherwise.

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    1. Gruesome, but would have liked to have led to something darker - but hey I'm a horror lover. Thanks for entering.

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    2. a perfect fit to the picture, good work.

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  6. OK. So I'm a few weeks behind. So what. At least I'm starting to write again. That counts. For week 116, Finding My Heart. Let's see when I can get to the next one.

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