Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group argues over.  These are my entries.

SPOOKTOBER DAY #3 — Undead

TITLE:  Veinous Venus

PREMISE:  The title of the story is surreal foolery culled from the shape of the nonsense letters in the original AI image.  Three young lovers in the 1960s realize their love really works – no jealousy, no pain, pure ecstasy.  And yet youth must someday pass them by.  They cannot bear the loss of that golden moment, and resort to weird occult studies.

Caroline is the center of their relationship, the main object of physical affection, but they’re otherwise fairly mutual.  Renee has a more care-giving role, Arthur the pointy head and intellectualizer of their crimes.  They achieve a kind of immortality through undeath, using an unsavory ritual to mortify themselves.  But they just traded one kind of decline for another.  Instead of the usual signs of aging, they are becoming exaggerations of decay.  Eyes discolor and hollow, limbs draw taut, verminous lines writhe below Caroline’s flesh.  They’re fading slower than with natural age, but must wonder if it was worth it, and what the grim future holds.

HORROR ELEMENT:  Mild body horror of spooky ghouls fading away, existential melancholy in the face of inevitability.

Poster by AI, modified with photoshop.