Blood Flower by Tim Eagle (Part 5)

Welcome to FREE FICTION FRIDAY!

I give you the very old, circa 2016, version of Blood Flower, a macabre tale that I rushed through back in my young impatient years. Please enjoy, and please don't be too harsh, it's fiction from my beginnings, while raising a family, working full time, and grinding daily...the genesis of an ambitious writer. If you want the properly formatted version of this in print and don't want to wait every until Friday to continue reading for free, please buy a copy in print here: Blood, Dreams & Tears or purchase the eBook here: Blood, Dreams & Tears

Carriages of church goers dressed in their Sunday’s best lined the side of the old trail, leaving just enough room for Jake to walk down. He could hear children playing and chasing after one another, he heard the religious folks murmur amongst one another. It was a slow progression at first and turned into a loud outpouring of chatter. Jake’s stomach flipped, flopped, and a small dose of vomit filled the back of his throat. It burned and it took all he could muster to force it back down. 

Short bursts of acidic bile continued stinging his tonsils and his tongue. Jake was overpowered by the urge to puke as the two guards began to manhandle him. The sunflower didn’t work. He thought. He almost tripped on a rough patch of the trail and regained his balance.   

The executioner waited under the oak tree at the end of Sunflower Row. He was dressed in brown leather from head to toe, a wide tooth grin spread beneath his leather mask. The sight of the man who would place the noose around Jake’s neck and kick the bucket from underneath him was terrifying. The man showed no remorse, only raw humor in the act he was about to perform. 

The sun was brazen and Jake’s armpits were drenched with sweat. His lips were dry and his throat parched. Halfway down death’s trail he saw a small red drop fall from the sky. It was followed by another, and another until a full torrential downpour of a thick viscous liquid showered everyone. Jake thought it was rain and stuck out his tongue; it tasted of copper and salt. Sinewy chunks of the gelatinous substance landed over the crowd. The spectators bunched their children together, trying to block the falling substance. They herded like lost sheep. Jake wanted to laugh but the true slaughter began before he could blink.

The sunflowers in the field waved and wisped by a faint breach of air, each of the petals were painted with drops of red that fell from the sky, a mirror image to the flower in Jake’s pocket. The executioner stood unflinching because he had a job to do and the guards that were once watching him vanished. Jake searched for his captors, hoping that they had left him to his own devices, and on the ground beneath each guard’s clothing was a mound of waxy tissue. Four bloody eyeballs stared up at him from the ground as if pleading for help. A burning sensation rose in the back of Jake’s throat and this time he couldn’t stifle the vomit, he let it go. 

People fled from the horror show of others melting away to nothing but lumps of skin and blood. They screamed as each person vanished like ice cubes on a hot day. Their flesh stretched, shrank and the meaty tissue beneath their skin melted.

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Tim Eagle

Tim Eagle is an author of the novellas Stolen Seed, Life Ship, and the Vasectomus Collection. He lives full time, on the road, with his wife, Maria and their dog, Cocoa. He grew up in Michigan and is inspired by the dysfunction of America. His books are available on Amazon, godless and this site timeaglefiction.com 

Tim Eagle's Blood Flower