Maria held her breath to avoid breaking the pasture’s deathly silence.
She’d never seen a horse walk so gingerly—even Hank knew something was wrong.
Maria regretted ignoring the townsfolks’ exhortations to keep animals inside after dark.
Come on, Hank.
Hank’s hooves landed noiselessly, but still the piercing blue eyes crept closer.
As one, Hank and Maria sprinted into the stable, slamming the door behind them.
Thunk. THUNK.
The metal held.
Maria slept in the stable that night.
In the morning, ragged gouges in the door dripped ichor stalactites stinking of brimstone.
“You’re sleeping inside from now on.”
Hank whinnied.
Jason P. Burnham loves to spend time with his wife, children, and dog. Find him on Bluesky at @moparandgalen.bsky.social
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The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood
spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a
few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted,
usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries,
determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to
Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.
You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.
This
time the challenge was to write a flash fiction
piece playing off key word: draft.
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