Surprise Visit (flash fiction)

Surprise Visit

One evening there came a knock on my door. It was a succession of loud thumps that rather surprised me. I crept to the door with my heart pounding in my ears, and tentatively opened it. To my shock there stood Janelle, a friend I hadn’t seen for a long time.

“Hi Samantha!” she said in a slightly deeper voice than I remembered her having. I opened the door fully.

“Hi Janelle. It’s been a while.” I replied. I noticed her skin was a strange green colour, and bits of it looked like it had fallen off recently. She smiled at me and I saw her teeth were a mixture of yellow and black, some of them had gone. “So what happened to you?’ She gave me another nauseating smile.

“I died apparently. I woke up in a coffin and dug myself out. Slowly bits are falling off me.” she said. She grabbed one of her fingers, and it broke off like she was snapping a twig which almost made me retch. “Apparently I’m a ghoul now. Good thing I wasn’t cremated.” She suddenly laughed.

“How terrible!” I replied trying to keep the rising bile in my mouth.

‘It’s not that bad really. I do have this insatiable hunger for flesh, but aside from that I’m fine. The good thing is any flesh will do, even if it’s rotten. So I’ve got that going for me!” she laughed out loud again. I found it an uncomfortable dry cackle of a laugh. I felt even more nauseous, if that was possible.

“So why have you come to visit me ?” I asked while dreading the answer.

“I haven’t seen you for ages, so I thought I would look you up and say hi. I just wanted to bring you grave tidings!” she said and suddenly started laughing again. Undead or not, Janelle could never resist a pun.

Joanne Fisher

This was written with the prompt Day 2 – Grave Tidings provided by Sammi Cox’s 13 Days of Samhain.

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©2020 Joanne Fisher