The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Next Meal
by Lydia Prime

“Hello?” Whimpering from the darkness startled cautious visitors; their footsteps came to a standstill. “Is, is someone there?” The voice asked weakly.

Twenty feet from the opening, they huddled close together, not sure where the voice had come from. A summer breeze blew through the open room, wafting the scent of fear and sweat toward the damp chasm.

“I can hear you, please, help me,” the voice pleaded and the feet crept closer, certain a little girl was calling to them. Heel to toe, they made it to the edge and peered down, their flashlights just barely able to penetrate the darkness; perhaps a trick of the light, but one was certain something skittered across the ground from one corner to the other.

“Hurry, please!” She called out again; her voice was beginning to sound impatient and less distressed. The men looked at each other before deciding which one of them would go down there and save the girl. With a heavy sigh, the smaller of the two began his descent into the darkness.

CRACK. CRUNCH.

“Help me!” He shouted to his friend. The sound of flesh tearing from bone echoed through the cavernous pit; a scream from below drove right through the man trembling above. Hesitantly, he shined his light below and saw his friend scattered all over the floor and walls. His breath caught in his throat, Where was the … thing that did this!?

Rapid scraping against metal; it was coming. His mind blank, his body failing to remember how to move, to scream; helpless and frozen he stayed as a white creature exited the concrete opening. It had the horns of a stag and the face of a decomposing ram; its slender body turned, showing the butchery that covered its matted fur. Tears began to well in the man’s eyes as it showed off knifelike claws, tapping them together and watching as the crimson bits dribbled from each one.

“Delicious, but still…” came the warbled female voice, as its red eyes locked on its next meal.

Fiction © Copyright Lydia Prime
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com