Flash Fiction Prompt by: Paranormal
Paranormal Prompts: Prompt 22 - Picture Prompt
❤ WINNER! ❤

Prompt

(2,000 characters or less)

My Entry
(exactly 2,000 characters)

Moonlight pours over the Eastward Stone Motel in Kilburne, Montana. Behind the veil of a coral curtain, there sits a candle whose flame dances with offspringing shadows. Ellis Crawford is impatient, resting on the edge of his hotel bed. In the wavering light, he polishes hunting knives, sparks flying as he slides a skinner up and down the sharpening bar. 

Back in LA, Ellis is known not by his face, but by his deeds. The Back Alley Slasher. Here in this rural town, however, he is known by his true name. 

Ellis Crawford grew up here. 

More importantly, he had his first kill here. 

As candlelight flickers on the wall, echoes of bloodsplatter play his mind. Lilith Mirren was a spritely little thing, so much fight in her. Her brown hair, so soft between his fingers. Oh, how he left such a mess behind! 

He cannot believe it's already been a decade since that spectacular night, and to celebrate, Ellis Crawford is going to find another. Just like her. 

"Not tonight," someone whispers. 

Ellis cranes his head toward the bathroom. 

"Not tonight," it says again, and this time, Ellis stands, gripping the skinner inflexibly. 

He should be alone. Ellis wonders if the voice is a mere reverberation of neighboring lust in the next hotel room, but he knows it isn't. 

It's in here with him. 

How delightful, he thinks. Has his prey found him first? 

Silently, he edges toward the bathroom, kicks the door open, and flicks the switch. But there is nothing. Just an empty, retro bathroom with decor still trapped in the seventies. Ellis almost leaves, until he notices the fog on the mirror. 

Strange... 

He hasn't showered yet. 

But not nearly as strange as the message waiting for him. 

Ellis steps closer, noticing condensation dripping like blood from the curly tails of enigmatic words: "Wish you were here," it says, and Ellis stares at the heart, broken with streams like tears. 

That's when he sees her. A reflection standing behind him with a knife in her hand. 

Lilith Mirren.