“Bitter Return” • by Pauline Barmby

Fir trees rustle in the bitter wind, snow drifting down from their branches. 

My feet, past aching and numbness into searing agony, break the snow’s icy crust with each step. Of my grueling journey to reclaim the talisman, two miles remain.

The wind and rustling pause. A new sound, a wailing howl, fills the forest. Cranberry-red eyes gleam in the distant shadows.

My frozen feet cannot run. The scrawny trees provide no shelter. I could yield to the beasts in hopes that, sated, they would spare the village.

No. In a snarling tangle of limbs, I stab and slash. A hellhound forces me to my knees, its teeth at my throat. I waver, then thrust the talisman at its crimson eyes. It vanishes, leaving only a scream.

Relieved, exhausted, I leave a bloody trail to the village. Through the ruined gates, I display the depleted amulet. I meet only silence.

 

---

Pauline Barmby (she/her) is an astrophysicist who believes that you can’t have too many favorite galaxies. She lives in London, Canada and hopes to someday visit her namesake main belt asteroid, minor planet 281067. Her fiction has appeared in Utopia Science Fiction, Analog, and Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 2. Find links to more of her stories at more of her words at galacticwords.com.

Pauline has become a regular contributor to Stupefying Stories in recent years. If you enjoyed this story, you might also want to read “Trans-Earth Injection,” “The Triennial Igneous Tri-Partite Competition,” the deeply disturbing “Songbird, Jailbird,” or our personal favorite, “There is Only One Black Cat.”

 

---

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 story of no more than 150 words in length that was inspired by the author’s choice of two words from this list: turkey, parade, football, fir tree, stocking, or cranberry.

PETE WOOD CHALLENGE #37
IS NOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS!
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO!

---

Did you enjoy this story? Then check out our magazine. It’s free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers, and you can get the four most recent issues with just one click.

(Or get just one at a time, if that’s what you’d really prefer.)

Categories: The Pete Wood Challenge