Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, I don’t dress up–but I get lots of candy! Oleander Plume has been having a ball with Halloween! She did a favorite horror book round-up of the Prompted authors, including me, and talked horror flicks with Roger Jackson. When she asked me to do a scary story swap, I did not hesitate! Ever the most prolific person I know, she got her story to me right away–and now I get to share with you!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Demon’s Kiss

By Oleander Plume

I told her no, that temptress, that she-devil. But that gal don’t listen – she takes – until all that’s left is a pile of smoldering ash.

I met her in a dive bar. Whiskey on the rocks she ordered. What kind of woman drinks whiskey? The kind you should stay away from, that’s who. You see a dame sipping Jack, you turn tail and run, boy. Fast as you can into the night, eyes down, watching for shadows and the sound of leathery wings.

She’s a demon! I speak the truth. Her perfume smelled of sulfur and hair was the color of hell fire. Those crimson nails left rake marks on my back that never fade – scars on my heart – blood gurgling in my lungs. She destroyed me, I know this. Ruined me and left a shell of a man behind.

That wicked succubus, drew me in with her creamy thighs and tight pussy. Rode me hard until she got hers, sometimes all night long. Once finished, out the window she’d fly, before sun up, always before sun up. Afraid of that ball of orange rising in the east and maybe the blue sky, too.

She drank the night. Yeah, I said whiskey but she drank the night, too. Tall glasses of inky black, stars floating at the top like tears. I took a sip once and it damn near froze my tongue. I know if I tasted her blood it would do the same.

That witch tried to force it down my throat. Be like me, she said. Dance in the ebony gloom, naked, skin bone white, for all the ever after. No thanks, I told her. I’ll keep my ever-loving soul intact, and one day I’ll soar to heaven on a golden beam. She laughed like the caw of a raven. There’s no heaven, she said, only the pyre and screams of the damned.

Her kiss was like a burning ember. Singed me to the quick. If you stripped away my skin you’d find soot, I swear this is true, I swear on all that’s good and holy. Yeah, I’ll have another, but not whiskey. No, sir.

That’s the devil’s drink.

Loved that? Go read my story on her blog!