This story was originally posted on November 14 last year and came from a prompt sent to me in a horror group. The prompt was something along the lines of “They had lived in the house 23 years.” When I see an image or a prompt that I like, I usually see a word or an opening line in my head. Echoes was the word that sprung to mind, and I imagined an old couple leaving the house. From there, the idea of why they were leaving came quite quickly, but I wanted to write it in a way that was a bit of a gut punch ending. Here is the story:
ECHOES
Grady pulled down the sliding door of the U-Haul, making sure it was properly locked before moving around to the cab. He climbed inside, taking the hand of his wife Martha, who was trying to hide the tears spilling down her face.
“Are you alright, my sweet?” Grady asked, rubbing his thumb on the back of his wife’s hand.
She rested her head against the window, her breath creating aa foggy mark on the glass. “I’ll be okay,” she caught a sob before it escaped. “We had a lot of good years there is all.”
“Twenty-three by my reckoning.” Grady sucked on his bottom lip, doing the mental math. “What’ll you miss the most?”
Martha sighed, further fogging the glass. “The hunting.”
Grady nodded. “It was fertile ground, for sure, but I’ve checked out the new place. It’ll be just as good, maybe better.”
Wiping away the condensation from the window, Martha let out a gasp as she reached up and clutched her throat.
“What wrong, baby?”
Martha poked a finger toward the side mirror. “Look. Up on the second floor.”
Leaning over his wife, Grady squinted at the mirror, a little chuckle escaping his throat. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
A girl of no more than seven years of age stood by the upstairs window, palms against the glass, a look of terror on her face.
“Do you think they’ll ever find them?” Martha asked, eyes wide.
“Nah. I buried those little bitches deep, all twenty-three of them.” He sucked on his lip again. I think the house is just keeping the first as a reminder of our time here.” With one more look at the girl, Grady cranked the engine and steered the vehicle up the drive, heading of for their new killing grounds.
What works well here is the restraint before the reveal. The conversation feels ordinary enough that the shift lands hard without needing excess explanation. “The hunting” is the moment the atmosphere quietly changes, and from there the ending arrives with the kind of cold simplicity that suits short horror best.
Very nicely done!
The twist worked very well and you made all this happen with such an economy of words.