Screamers

Writober 2025: Day Sixteen Banshees>Response Post

🔗Links in the Table of Contents are Jump links to my responses to each of the challenges
🐦‍⬛This is original work created by Maria L. Berg and this post counts as copyright. All rights reserved.

🎃OctPoWriMo 🦇Writober Flash Fiction 👻Halloween Photography Challenge

Today’s Theme: Banshees

These are my responses to the prompt post for Day 16 of Writober: Screams in the Night

OctPoWriMo

The Spirit of the Party

I smell that cherry and oak
smoke of your cigar
glowing from behind the veil
and burning like a hot glowing
forgotten stove

I strum the guitar
and stare into the fire pit
Ah, there you are
it’s been a long time

but I hope you’ve lowered your expectations
there won’t be a party tonight
no snacks, no small talk
or clinking glasses
no lubricated souls for you to slip into
no rosy-cheeked mask for you to wear
I will continue to bore you
until there’s nothing to hold
you here

I hold the pen to the page and listen
large loopy letters provide no insight
though they seem pressing
important secret knowledge

I shiver and wrap my cardigan
more tightly around my neck
Ah, there you are
my arm hairs standing on end
as my hand moves
all I want to do is sleep
but like you I don’t want to miss a thing

Writober Flash Fiction Challenge

The Banshee

Molly grabbed her sister’s hand. The sound had woken them before dawn. One hair-raising scream and just when they thought it had stopped, another scream. After breakfast, their father sent them out to play in the woods behind the house.

“But Dad, it’s out there. Don’t you hear it?” Molly pleaded.

Dad only patted her head and pointed to the door. When they reached their favorite climbing tree, they saw it. That’s when Molly grabbed her sister’s hand. All of the branches had been stripped from their tree and a giant head sat on top screaming and screaming.

“I don’t like this,” Molly whispered. “I don’t feel good. Let’s creep back into our room and play.”

When they got home, Dad was sprawled at the base of the stairs, not breathing.

Molly screamed.

Halloween Photography Challenge

For today’s images I used one of my demon drawings layered with a head-shaped paper-cut filter and some crinkly paper for hair. I took photos in the rich black and white setting.