Tag Archives: haunted

The Girl and the Princess

 

lighthouse

© A Mixed Bag 2013

Ted and Priscilla were slowly motoring away from the lighthouse on Gasparilla Island, the small yacht’s sails secured it being a calm day on the Gulf. They were finally fulfilling their dream of spending the summers sailing the coastline.

“So you say that lighthouse is supposed to be haunted, Ted?” Priscilla was chuckling.

“Presumably the daughter of the lighthouse keeper died there sometime in the early 19th century. She’s been heard giggling and playing upstairs.”

“I’m more interested in the headless ghost of the Spanish princess decapitated by a pirate.”

“Of course you are, you macabre wench.”

Priscilla laughed. “If you weren’t steering this tub, I’d…”

Two unseen figures watched at the railing near the top of the lighthouse. A headless woman and a little girl held hands while a cat’s spectre affectionately rubbed against their ankles.

“Tourists,” the child said in disgust. “Wish we didn’t have to put up with them, Josefa. Glad they’re finally gone.”

She looked up at where the princess’s head should be. Josefa turned as if she were looking down, then squeezed her girl’s hand.

“I know. I love you, too. Let’s go back inside and play with my dollies. Casper, you come in, too.”

When I saw the prompt, I immediately decided to write about a haunted lighthouse and so looked up Top 10 Haunted Lighthouses.

The Port Boca Grande Lighthouse on Gasparilla Island, Florida (number 2 on the list) really is supposed to be haunted by a young girl, supposedly the ghost of a keeper’s daughter who died there. Legends say she can be heard giggling and playing upstairs. The headless body of Josefa, a Spanish princess decapitated by a pirate is said to wander the sand nearby. I decided to make the child and the princess friends. Another lighthouse on the list may or may not have a ghostly cat in residence.

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction Challenge for November 26th 2017. The idea is to use the photo at the top as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 200.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Abandoning the Dead

norfolk

A gravestone in the cemetery of the brutal penal colony on Norfolk Island. Photograph: Lawrence Bartlett/AFP/Getty Images

Reverend Percy finally convinced the Church of England to relocate the Mission to the Solomons, ostensibly to be closer to the population of focus.

“Leaving our company now, Reverend?” A familiar voice chuckled from the darkness.

“I have no power here to dispel your kind, even in the name of Jesus Christ.”

“Your Savior won’t consort with us, Reverend. He’s already consigned us to the deepest pits of Hell. Best you pack and scurry off to that ship yonder.”

“Sir, I now abandon you to God’s mercy.”

“God abandoned us long ago with good reason. We all earned the gallows…would have perished except for Norfolk.”

Percy ran with his case to the open door. “I leave you and your sinful brethren, Mr. Robert Knowles.”

In 1920 the Melanesian Mission abandoned the former penal colony to the blacked souls of all the prisoners who lived and died there, and yet live on.

I composed this wee tale for the What Pegman Saw flash fiction writing challenge. The idea is to take a Google maps street image and location and use them as the inspiration in crafting a story no more than 150 words long. My word count (after a lot of editing as the original was over 100 words longer) is exactly 150. Today, the Pegman takes us to Norfolk Island.

I did a bit of Wikipedia research and discovered that it was yet another penal colony back in the day. What made it unique is that prisoners who had been sent to the Australian penal colony and who continued to commit crimes that should have earned them the gallows were then sent to Norfolk, a place of unspeakable brutality and sin according to this report.

I also learned that the island had been the headquarters of the Church of England’s Melanesian Mission between 1867 and 1920. In 1920, the mission was moved from Norfolk to the Solomon islands to be closer to their “population of focus,” but in my story, I suggest that it really moved because the hordes of blackened souls of all the damned prisoners of the colony horribly haunted and tortured the good Reverend in charge.

The mission finally abandoned the island of Norfolk, which had become a Hell on Earth. Being so close to Halloween, I thought I should turn the prompt into a ghost story. Of course, all this is fiction as are the names of the two people in my tiny saga.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Their Only Playground

Urban Street, Buffalo, NY

© Google 2015

The elementary school on Urban Street had been abandoned ever since the fire gutted it. The city finally budgeted the money to tear it down. Twenty-four boys and girls lost their lives in that fire. The building’s destruction might bring some closure to their families.

Frank Hurley had retired as Fire Chief last year. He had been in charge of containing the three alarm inferno. His crew were called heroes for saving over two hundred children, but the screams of the twenty-four they couldn’t save haunted Frank every night.

He was inside the school now, but instead of silence, he heard children laughing and running. They were all still here, separated from the living, perpetually playing with the dead.

He had to stop the demolition tomorrow. He’d failed to save their lives five years ago. He wasn’t going to be a party of destroying the only home they had left.

I wrote this flash fiction story in response to a photo prompt provided by What Pegman Saw. The word count limit is 150, and my piece is exactly that.

To read other stories based on this prompt, visit InLinkz.com.