Friday is upon us again, and here I am Fictioneering – with what I’d consider one of my creepier attempts.

The photo comes courtesy of Lura Helms, but the prompt, as always, comes from Madison Woods. Give it a read and let me know what you think!

The Hatchery

Snap.

A fissure opened in the stump and Cole stepped closer. The trees had died months ago, but somehow they’d kept growing – not up, but out, tumid trunks swelling in the blackened soil.

Snap.

Now the forest was full of pregnant trees, thick boles hung with knots, limbs splayed.

SNAP.

The fissure grew wide, and a long leg, bone white and ragged, reached from the darkness, groping for purchase on the swollen stump. The dead leaves rattled as a fat body turned beneath, scraping  inside the trunk before thrusting another leg into the light.

Cole stepped back.

Snap, snap, snap.

All across the forest, the spiders were hatching their shells.

***

You know the drill: Leave your comments and criticism (and, hopefully, links to your stories) in the section below, and click on the little blue guy for even more great stories! For more of my stories, check out my fiction section.

It’s Friday, and ’round these parts Friday means Fictioneering to the tune of Madison Woods’ photo prompts. This week the photo comes from Susan Wenzel and for once I was at a loss for ideas, but I mulled it over and did some free writing and eventually came up with this week’s offering. Enjoy!

The Reunion

“You get stronger every year,” Glenn told the clams as he dug. When he found them he pinched their shells with his callused fingers, and sometimes they ended up in his bucket but more often than not they pulled hard and disappeared beneath the sand.

He sat up and inspected his haul: three dozen gray-white shells — some cracked, others already ajar with their feet hanging out — but a good many would be fit for eating, and his sons had always loved to watch them popping open in the pit.

That was forty years ago, he reminded himself, suddenly anxious. How will it be now?

Slowly he made his way toward the rocky shore, black and sharp in the grey distance, his offering clutched tightly to his chest.

***

Click the blue dude for links to the other stories of the week, and, as always, feel free to help me out with some constructive criticism (I like to think of it as crowd-sourced editing).

For your browsing pleasure, you can also find links to my other fiction right here.

For this week’s Friday Fictioneers post (care of Madison Woods) I thought I’d try something from a longer piece I’ve been thinking about for a while. This isn’t an excerpt, because nothing longer has been written yet — but it’s a look at one of the characters you’d meet along the way.

I’m definitely interested in constructive criticism this week so lay it on me.

Sugartooth

Anselmo stood at the basin scrubbing his hands long after they were clean. The mud was gone from the creases, leaving hard, sun-leathered skin. He’d served Mister Zucaro for forty years, but not once had he felt used, not until the arrival of the mainlander – this Callum Gallagher.

Anselmo was no man’s tool, but the money … his wife had insisted, Mister Gallagher’s offer was too good, and now he had to do this thing. He’d looked at these fields of green-prickled sugarcane for forty years, worked in this house and served this man for forty years, and now he had to watch it all burn.

And somehow his hands were clean…

***

The link for the other stories is right up there — check them out and post your links in the comments below!

Some other 100-word stories:

• Terroir
• False Flight
• Ky’awe

This week I knew right away how I wanted to deal with Madison Woods’ Friday Fictioneers photo prompt — hopefully that doesn’t make this a lazy story. Read, enjoy, comment and criticize, and then be sure to check out all the other stories with the link below.

Terroir

Through the glass, the sunlight made the wine shimmer like fresh-flowing blood. Helene watched as the fat man tipped it back, drinking it down in one gulp.

“What do you taste?”

He considered a moment. “It’s earthy, with a robust finish. Plums maybe? Oak?”

Helene sighed, but she smiled and nodded just the same. The tourists had such unpracticed palates. They never tasted them as she did, the bodies, buried deep where the vines curled playfully about their bones – through mouths packed with soil and ribs cracked by stones.

Her first harvest.

“Let me show you the cellars,” she said.

***

That little blue guy is holding the other stories hostage — go free them! If you enjoyed the story, maybe check out my Five Sentence Fiction or earlier Friday Fictioneers. I always appreciate good feedback!

A couple weeks back I did a Friday Fictioneers post that ended with some ominous crows; this week, birds figure in Madison Wood’s prompt, so I thought I’d try to take it in a slightly different direction from that other one.

Enjoy! Comments and criticism are welcome.

False Flight

The birds have amassed but they remain suspicious of their prize.

Their black eyes wink like stars in the waning light. Now and then, their wings unfurl and they shake the branches with false flight, but they do not descend — not yet.

I believe they are waiting for my spirit to leave its shell, but I, too, am suspicious…and afraid. My body is a day gone now, but my soul is newly wakened.

When I take flight, I wonder, where will I go? Will I be carried by a breeze into the sky? Will I sink to the ground to rot?

Or will I quaver here until the birds have pecked me to my bones — swallowing my soul.

*****

Click that little blue guy up there for a whole list of great responses to the photo prompt.

Some of my recent Friday Fictioneers posts:

• Ky’awe
• The Tenants
• Anchors Aweigh
• 11.2 Seconds

Constructive criticism, destructive praise, and everything in between welcome on this one. Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Madison Woods.

The Tenants

The juice seeped from her mouth and trickled down her chin, red like blood on her bone-white skin.

“You should try them, sister,” she said. The berries looked soft and ripe in her hand, staining the creases of her palm. I stepped back.

“Mother warned us…”

“Mother is an old woman — worried and weak and old. Their land is ours, so their berries are ours — and whatever else we like. She’s foolish to revere them so.”

“She fears them…”

My sister crushed the berries with her tongue and smiled defiantly, as one by one the crows landed in the branches above.

*****

Again, constructive criticism is encouraged — and if you’re feeling generous with you criticism, check out my other fiction, including stories that are even longer than 100 words!