Spooktoberfest Entry: Carving

Today is the first day of the Spooktoberfest blogging event!  My thanks to Jackie @ Bouquet of Books and Dani @ Entertaining Interests for hosting this.  These girls know how to concoct a  good blogging time!  

This event lasts from now until October 29th.  I'm posting today because my enthusiasm was simply too much for me to wait any longer than that!  I encourage anyone who hasn't signed up to take on the challenge.  There's still time to whip up something sinister!

What are the rules?

Requirements:

1.  Your Flash Fiction piece cannot be any longer than 300 words. Sorry… that’s part of the challenge. It can be scary, comical, romantic, whatever you choose. Just be creative!

2.  You must use the MANDATORY 5 words listed below 

   cobweb(s) 

   cauldron(s) 

   jack-o-lantern(s)

   ghost(s)

  razor(s)

3.  Post your Flash Fiction piece on your blog anytime between ...

Friday Oct. 26 - Monday, Oct. 29^th.  The contest ends at 11:59 p.m. Monday.

4.  Follow Dani and Jackie if you don’t already. They will follow back.

5.  It’s a blog hop, so hop around to other participating blogs and leave some awesome comments when the stories are posted.

6.  Have fun!

I wanted my story to be scary.  Halloween is just around the corner, after all!  So here you go.  I hope you enjoy it!

Carving

Jaclyn emerged from the chloroform fog.  Cold leather straps dug into the skin on her wrists and ankles, pinning her to a hard wood table.  Darkness crept into every corner of the room, so she couldn’t get a clear view of anything.  What she did see, though, was a row of shelves to her right that identified it as the old storage room.   Cobwebs clung to the boxes, proving their disuse.

Off to her other side, she spotted a faint red glow.  Turning her head, she could hardly believe her eyes.  “Is that . . .?” she whispered, unable to finish the sentence.  Yet her eyes didn’t deceive her.  A small cauldron was boiling on a hotplate.

A face hovered into view above her.  The twisted smile enhanced the features of her colleague, Dr. Lessner.  He had the typical mad scientist, gravity-defying white hair.  She felt the look made him look more like a caricature of a scientist than a scientist.  Jaclyn assisted him in creating plant hybrids.  Pumpkins were the latest project.  With their alterations, a carved pumpkin would last much longer, prolonging Halloween enjoyment.  

“What are you doing?” she asked, unable to steady her trembling voice.

“Taking care of a problem.”  He pulled a razor blade from his pocket.  “The pumpkins showed me our error.  They’re in pain, you see.”

“Huh?”

“The ghosts of the slaughtered will haunt us in hell,” Lessner growled.  He lifted her shirt and pressed the blade against the soft skin of her stomach.  “Jaclyn, have you ever been carved like a jack-o-lantern?”

Jaclyn looked on in horror as the blade punched through her skin, releasing the blood beneath.

Lessner laughed gleefully.  “Afterwards I’ll boil your innards and make you into a pumpkin pie.  You’ll know their anguish, as I now do.”

299 Words