Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Image by KL Kaley   Posting for the weekly #WritePhoto challenge by KL Caley at New2Writing.com.  Read all about it and join in at the WritePhoto site. I'm cheating this time, and reusing a story from 2016. It's kind of a nice Halloweenish tale, and I'm still kind of jet-lagged and couldn't come up with a new one. Besides, I like this tale. 1000 words. The Enchanted Blasted Forest The Enchanted Forest is a punishment post, but never mind what we did to get sent there. They have to man the post, and soldiers don’t last long there, so you don’t have to do much to end up there. About half of those sent never even arrive.   There were six of us, and when the road entered the blasted Forest we divided up the watch. Tomo watched left, Martin right, Jock ahead, Kora behind, Shea overhead, and I was back-up to them all, scanning every direction as thoroughly as I could.   The monsters weren’t bold. If Shea called out “harpy overhead!” we’d all r...

  Flashback Friday is a monthly meme that takes place on the last Friday of the month . The idea is to give a little more love to a post you’ve published on your blog before.  Maybe you just love it, maybe it’s appropriate for now, or maybe it just didn’t get the attention it deserved when you first published it. Thanks to Michael d’Agostino, who started it all, there is a solution – join Flashback Friday! And thanks to Jemima Pett , who has kept it going--visit her blog to add your name to the list ! Just join in whenever you like, repost one of your own blog posts , including any copyright notices on text or media, on the last Friday of the month. **** I dug into the archives in search of something appropriate to the season and found this story. Not exactly a Halloween story, but there are monsters enough to satisfy, I hope. This one appears to have clocked in at exactly 1000 words, and I said this about it when I first published it in May of 2016: Chuck Wendig gave us a...

Today's Flash Fiction is in response to a challenge to create an all-new monster. Chuck Wendig posed the challenge, so you follow the link to see all the other responses, if you're in the mood for fear and loathing! Or just read on. Chuck gave us 1500 words; I used 1239 of them. The End of All Delight Archibald D. Jones, to the Royal Geographic Society, July 16, ---- Sirs: The Delighter, named not for giving light, but for removing it, appears to be a unique monster, not part of a species or clan of delighters. For this blessing we should all be grateful. I have examined the victims of this creature, and the effect gave me great sorrow, despite my years in the field and my necessary anthropologist’s distance. That my eyes watered during this time was no doubt due to the incense being used in an attempt to cure the victims. One witness to an attack, who was himself spared, claimed that I wept because of the residual effects of the attack, but this is ridiculous, as I am not sub...

Chuck Wendig gave us a sub-genre mashup this week , and the dice gave me "creature feature" and "sword & sorcery." That's almost too easy a fit, but I was pressed for time, so that was a good thing. In 998 words, I give you: Some Heroics Required “You have to, Eeyla. You’re our last hope.” The knight shifted uncomfortably. She was the last hope? To go after a monster that had destroyed how many knights? “It’s defeated every other knight in the realm?” “Well, no.” Lord Altain looked uncomfortable in his turn. “But you have what none of them do. You have magic.” Eeyla sighed. She might have known. “So some fool of a wizard created a golem that’s run out of control. Why me? Let him fix his own mess.” The Lord Chancellor grimaced. “The monster ate him for breakfast, minutes after it was created. It had most of the village for elevenses.” It was the knight’s turn to grimace. It didn’t look like there was any way out. With a small groan for the joints that had bee...

Chuck  Wendig gave us a new challenge this week: a series utterances from his preschooler, to be used somewhere in a story. As one might expect from Chuck's progeny, they were...interesting. I selected "there's a 3-headed flying werewolf in that tree," and the rest of the Enchanted Forest came into being. Enchanted Blasted Forest The Enchanted Forest is a punishment post, but never mind what we did to get sent there. They have to man the post, and soldiers don’t last long there, so you don’t have to do much to end up there. About half of those sent never even arrive. There were six of us, and when the road entered the blasted Forest we divided up the watch.  Tomo watched left, Martin right, Jock ahead, Kora behind, Shea overhead, and I was back-up to them all, scanning every direction as thoroughly as I could. The monsters weren’t bold. If Shea called out “harpy overhead!” we’d all raise our spears and the monster would sheer off. Or Tomo would yell, “there’s a 3-head...