Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Step: A Six Sentence Story




"Watch your step," he said, steadying himself with the handle of the shovel he used as a walking stick and holding her elbow as he guided her through the stillness of the woods, thick with hickory and oak, with grapevines growing up from the brushy undergrowth and weaving a canopy from tree to tree, last fall's bed of oak leaves disguising the unevenness of the ground beneath them and crackling beneath their feet.



"Are you sure you saw mushrooms way back here?" she asked him, stumbling slightly in her impractical shoes. "And what's the hurry? You could have at least given me a chance to put on sneakers and get a bucket or something to carry mushrooms back to the house."

"See, right there!" he said to her, pointing to a spot near a pile of soft earth, and she bent to get a closer look, frowning slightly at the absurdity of him dragging her into the woods in her nice shoes to see some mushrooms that he very well could have brought back to the house to show her. 

The swish of the shovel broke through the quietness of the woods, and the impact that followed startled a few birds from their perch in the trees; after circling high above the spot where she lay, they settled back down onto their branches and watched, uninterested, as he carefully and thoughtfully moved the soft pile of earth, covering the impractical shoes last. 

Linking up with Ivy at Uncharted for Six Sentence Stories with the prompt "step."


15 comments:

  1. This had better be fiction!!! Creepy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, this is exciting! ladyleemanila x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who needs a shovel as a walking stick when searching for mushrooms? That was creepy right from the start. In future girls, you carry the shovel!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Im with Old Egg! ICK! Dyanne, should I be worried about this dark underbelly of yours? I may need to rethink visiting tornado alley some day! SO help me GOD you have a shovel the day I get to finally meet you and I am limping away as fast as my one less bad foot can take me!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OH YEAH! It was a great story though... I really got chills from the start. I thought sure , sure, kind old guy.... NO WAY! Now Im gonna be telling this story all day!

      Delete
    2. I wasnt kidding .... I had a friend read your little ditty today and he was all " WTF?" especially because I prepped him by saying you were such a little positive, happy peppy thinker girl! and didnt tell him there would be a twist... well, that you were twisted anyway! LOLOLOL.... I crack myself up! He loved your story too!

      Delete
  5. Who knows what evil lurks in the mind of the preschool teacher? I realized what was happening about the fourth sentence. EEK! Remind me never to go woods walking with you. I was lost in the description of the woods and the mind of the girl. Great story.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love how creepy it is!! Totally sounds plausible too, hopefully its just your vivid imagination!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great story and I was thinking of a bad ending, the more I read, but had hoped it would not come to that. I may be thinking of this story when I see mushrooms now!

    ReplyDelete
  8. nice! (leave to the scotts to break out and explore the … non-conventional)… well!

    ReplyDelete
  9. You do the murderous/mystery/creepy crazy thing quite well, Dyanne :) Good one!

    ReplyDelete
  10. For the love, woman! Here I thought you were talking about mushroom hunting (which I didn't even know was a thing until I moved to Indiana) and I had a whole comment ready to go for that story. Why does your brain go here? How many crime shows do you watch?

    ReplyDelete