Horror in a Flash - a collection of prompt based live-writting

Prompt: I just watched an entire family of trees...

Ever wonder if a horror story can be created out of the prompt "The Fillpino revolt against Espana and how the US used that to gain a strategic foothold in the south China sea?"

This is a collection of flash fiction written on the fly. I asked for prompts and then wrote each piece right then, taking between 15 minutes to an hour. Some came out okay and some not so much.

Prompt:

I just watched an entire family of trees disappear in a sinkhole in the swamp.

Joe always liked the swamp. It had a certain smell, of old rot and ancient secrets, that squelched under his feet, along with the watery mud in the shallow parts. The swamp grew deeper as he went, under he was forced to swim, with all the beasts and creatures that lurked below.

He lived in the swamp, in a cabin he built himself, out of old pieces of wood and plastic stolen from the nearby town. He tied them together from fallen bits of bark the trees allowed him to have, dark swamp trees coated in grime.

The trees spoke to him, telling him swamp secrets, things that only existed deep in the water. Joe learned of the bodies of travelers, pulled down by roots and covered in leeches and snakes, fed on as sacrifices to keep the swamp alive. The trees would lead him to the bodies and he would feed as well, cutting meat from their bloated backs and cooking over a small fire, an altar of old bones he kept near his cabin. It was shaped like a small tree, with a space in the middle for the fire. A skeletal arm and hand dangled down the middle, as a place to hang the meat, while the smoke drifted out of the top of the altar, giving it wispy leaves to go with its bone branches.

Joe still remembered his first time at the swamp. He had only been a child, a skinny eight year old boy on a camping trip with his family. Back then, the swamp was a popular spot, rough yet natural, a place for people to strike out and tame the land, while sitting safely in high priced tents.

One night, the trees called to Joe, singing to him in a voice like nothing he’d ever heard. At first he didn’t know where the sound was coming from, only that it filled his heart with awe. Then he looked up and saw the trees swaying in the breeze, each branch keeping time to the song.

“Listen,” they sang. “Listen to the trees. Listen to our song, listen to our breeze. Come follow the path, come follow your heart. You are ours, never to depart.”

The sound focused, as if it was going down a tunnel and the trees stopped moving, except for where the song still sounded. Joe carefully stepped down the path, as if his heart was being pulled and the rest of his body was just going along for the ride.

He kept walking and the path ended with two large, dead trees, grown together into an arch, their leaves entwined like a gate. As Joe came closer, the leaves parted, showing a large clearing of mud, right before the deep part of the swamp. A tight group of trees stood there, ringed with golden light, casting day through the dark night. These trees screamed at him, louder than the song and filled with pain, fear and a deep caution that chilled the awe from Joe’s heart.

“Run!” the trees shouted. “Run away! The song will lead you astray! Run child, past these gates! Hurry child, death awaits!”

The ground opened up under the trees and they fell inside, quickly like the ground itself was a mouth swallowing them up. Their screams cut off and the swamp closed up again, blocking their light and leaving the area pitch black, blacker than night had any right to be. The song grew louder, surer, driving the pain, fear and caution of the screaming trees.

“Do not fear,” the song sang, as the trees around started to sway again and glow like the trees that had been eaten, but with a dark glow that only made the blackness surrounded Joe deeper. “This is your land, this place of dark. Where no light dwells, with its sullying spark. Death has won, feel the shift. You are ours now and death is our gift.”

Joe felt the darkness enter his body, filling him up like a jug, with the cool muddy waters of the swamp. He smiled and felt his eyes adjust to the dark, for he and it were now one. He could see through the mud and water, to every little creature that dwelled, including the ones that had taken over the trees, long reedy things with spindly fingers stretched out like branches.

He turned around and walked back to the campsite, where the tent swayed in the breeze, like the flapping skin of a dying beat. Joe picked up a hunting knife and attacked the tent, shredding it and everything inside. The swamp no longer spoke in words, but he knew what he needed to do, as images of an altar formed in his head, an altar crafted out of his first sacrifice.

It took a while to strip the bones and carrying them deeper into the swamp, past the camping area, to a place no people ever came. After he built the altar, he cooked the meat, letting it smoke until it was as black as the swamp itself. He ate a few bits and scattered the rest around, as an offering to the swamp and trees.

For the first few months, Joe slept outside, curled up next to the altar like a puppy at its master’s feet. He ventured into to town to steal the makings of his cabin, as well as an old cot and chair. He’d sit inside and wait for the swamp trees to tell him to get up, that another sacrifice was ready.

At first, he made the kills himself, staining his knife with the warm blood of the living. Over the years, the swamp grew stronger under the flow of blood and it was able to perform the sacrifices, each bit working together to bring down the men women and children that wandered inside.

The swamp become a dark legend, a place no one ever willingly ventured. Now the swamped lured them in, using the same song that Joe had grown to love more than anything. His job now was caretaker, finding the bodies and taking enough meat to live off of and feed the altar.

Now that his cabin was complete, Joe hadn’t gone into town in years. He sat in his chair and breathed in the cool swamp air that permeated everything, with its sweet yet bitter tang of all those who had been sacrificed. He’d walk around the swamp, delighting in the darkness that never went away, even in the high sun of day.

And he always waited for the crisp, dark song that meant some new sacrifice was being lured to the swamp, where they’d lose their life and provide Joe with the promise the trees made to him all those years ago, the promise of the gift of death.