Fall Writing Frenzy 2025

Using the lovely autumnal image below as inspiration, I decided to go with an eco-horror-themed MG piece this year. Photo cred: Unsplash via Patrick Tomasso

The Red Night (199 words)

It’s been thirty-six days since I’ve seen another person. Thirty-six days since the Red Night.  

The night the September sky beckoned a blood moon that no astronomer could have seen coming. 

I was in the cellar when the sun set, looking for a jar of plum preserves—the dark-purple-perfect kind.  

As I climbed out, I could feel it in the atmosphere. A charge. The feeling just before lightning strikes a tree nearby.  

Dad’s truck idled in the driveway, its radio purring static, driver’s seat empty. Fireflies winked around three bowls of melting ice cream on the picnic table.  

They were gone. Dad, Mom, Jade.  

Later that night, the animals came.

First the foxes, playing tag under crimson moonbeams. Then the last of the bison, lumbering down from the high plains to feast in our orchard. 

At dawn, a cougar leapt onto the truck’s roof and went to sleep.  

Soon, I’ll have to leave this house. Scavenge.  

Already, the maples have spread auburn arms across the highway. Their leaves touch now and whisper tree-talk.  

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there are things about the Earth that surpass human understanding.  

But maybe one day, I’ll know why I’m still here.