Clinging To Hope

The crew is swept out to sea by the powerful waves. I hear their screams as they are drowning, and it’s haunting. The captain died by a blow to the head and it’s every man for himself. I jump into the deep ocean and grab onto a piece of debris. As I’m floating, I hear distant cries of the men still onboard the ship. They are sinking and clinging to the railing. I’ve known these men for years. I hold on tightly and pray.

In and out of consciousness, my head is weary, and my stomach growls.

Help will come.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Haunting

Molly opened the door to her new antique shop and breathed in the freshly painted room. She sold everything from refurbished wood furniture, candles and lotions among other products. Family and friends begged her not to buy the building that was a torture chamber in the early 1800s. Rumor had it that past owners heard screams and footsteps, but she didn’t believe it.

One year later, Molly foreclosed. Customers were too frightened of the rumors.

On her last day, Molly locked the door for the final time. When she turned for one last look, a figure waved from the window.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Descending On A Gas Giant

'Remember Jupiter?" he heard his friend ask.

"Yes, that was nothing compared to this. At least we knew what we were mining for there."

"Tell the base to abort in 2 years, in case we don't find anything."

Tox spoke into the wireless to his superintendent. He remembered that moment clearly, years later.

"We are not here for mining, Tox. We are here to terraform and colonize."

Tox remembered the look in all his colleagues' eyes. Even today, they remember that haunting look. As they looked down inside the gas giant planet, they knew something had certainly gone wrong, somewhere.

From Guest Contributor Debarun Sarkar

Debarun sleeps, eats, reads, smokes, drinks, labors, and occasionally writes stories and submits them. Recent works have appeared or are forthcoming in Visitant, Off the Coast, The Opiate, Aainanagar, Rat’s Ass Review, Cerebration, and here at A Story in 100 Words, among others. He can be reached at debarunsarkar.wordpress.com

Previously appeared in Friday Flash Fiction.

Future Ghosts

Every instance of seeing one’s reflection, especially when alone, merges to form a person's self-awareness. When reviewed in one's mind, these tiny portraits play like a film at thirty frames per second.

For Hugh, this rendition of himself had for too long been tinctured by a sinister affectation. He didn't want to believe the person facing him in the mirror was truly himself. Yet, the longer he faced this apparition, the more its evil seeped into him.

When Hugh died, after a long life of many misdeeds, his spirit stayed behind to haunt him through the mirrors of his past.

Nothing More Than Coincidence

The argument over the next-door cemetery was one of those that never ended, though nobody in the Miller family took it particularly seriously. None of them were actually frightened.

But after the third Miller boy died of an unusual accident on his 18th birthday, the rest of the Millers began to wonder. No family could be that unlucky, right?

It was Mr. Bodewin, the retired Sheriff, who told them they didn't live on the edge of the cemetery, but smack dab in the middle. But he maintained the boys' deaths were an accident still. Mr. Bodewin didn't believe in hauntings.

A Darkness Of Mind

Drake's fate was determined the day his father was killed.

Ghosts do not often commit murder. They haunt. They instill fear. They might so inhabit a person's psyche as to drive her to suicide. But actual slaughter is rare.

Drake’s father was murdered by a ghost, and on that day Drake became a ghost hunter.

He inhabited the darkness. He learned about betrayal and lonely hearts and the isolation of eternity. He drank in whispers and sang of misfortune.

He became a lost soul. So it was that upon his death, he knew that he himself would become a ghost.

In Pen, For Your Convenience

It's the last thing I'll ever write, the second to last marks I'll leave upon the Earth, before my ashes cloud the sea.

I'll clamp my mouth shut, bite my tongue. No intemperate words will sully the immortality of these last utterances.

This page is for you alone. I seek forever in your trust. My soul passes on to you--a flash, a fire--that I ask you to carry into the dark.

I leave my legacy in your mendacious hands, to do with as you will. Everything I am belongs to you forevermore.

I hope my memory haunts you.

Ghost Story

Jackson stumbled into the bathroom and flicked on the light. He jumped with a start. Samantha, his dead wife, was staring at him in the mirror.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I've decided to haunt you."

"Whatever you say." Jackson went back to bed.

Samantha started following Jackson wherever he went. People often caught him talking to himself, and decided he was crazy.

It was not long before Jackson's boss fired him. "You're behavior lately has been unacceptable."

"But my dead wife is haunting me."

"Why didn't you say so? You get used to it after a while."