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Tanya Humphreys

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2021

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111 Stories

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Starling

Weekly Contest #344

I stared through the chain link fence unsure of what I was looking for; Their faces were as grey as the clouds above that gathered like lint, both grew heavier, the former heavily drooping to their thin chests, the latter drooping heavily with rain. Rain as chilled as the dank puddles of medieval dungeons would not cleanse this place of its evil.Would I even recognize the face of someone I knew once? A loved one even? These were skeletal with dark haunted eye pits and mouths downturned under cheekbones that looked more like elbows. They were...

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Question Mark Tails

Weekly Contest #343

‘What is it about that mouse that drives me so nuts?’ I thought for the tenth time today. Or maybe the eleventh. ‘She’s got the same pale grey fur as I do. Only softer and thicker, like she’s brushed it with a bur while counting a hundred strokes.’ I crept along the floorboards of the old church on her trail. ‘She’s got the same polished onyx eyes as mine. Only they twinkle like stars when she smiles.’ I peeked around the corner. Nothing there. ‘She’s got the same pink paws as me---only finer when she beckons me with a single finger for me ...

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Gambolini

Weekly Contest #335

The boys raced through the alley hollering like crazed hyenas after a small rabbit. Marcus Gabolini---The Great Gambolini---wasn’t so great and certainly wasn’t a rabbit though he was their prey. Every day after school, the bigger boys tormented the smaller one. They took his books and flung them into puddles, they took his glasses and stomped them, they even took his shoes once. Marcus’s father was perpetually angry with his son. “Stand up for yourself!” he’d shout. “Put up yer fists for a change!” And just the night before he’d said, “I s...

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Wendigo

Weekly Contest #334

The young lad sighed at the sight of his empty snare wondering how the rabbit had gotten away. He stared down the path for a moment, his wide blue eyes searching the low, snow-covered hemlock boughs for a shiver. As he lifted the rim of his woolen tuque from his ears to hear better, the pom-pom on top bounced over his sheepskin collar. When he looked up, snowflakes fell to his face like bits of lace made of ice; they clung to his eyelashes, melted, and became like tears down his cheeks. “Hmph,” he muttered under his warm breath, “silly to b...

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Winter Wolf

Weekly Contest #332

The buildings along the street were the same silvery shades as the low banks of clouds above. Their faces revealed dark windows and funereal emptiness. The muddy, snow-slushy street glowed faintly. The world here was in black and white. Though the storm had passed, the town was unnaturally subdued. There should have been bluster and people shoveling and sweeping. ‘Not right for December, with Christmas just two days away.’ Faint fiddle music grew louder as she came to the end of the street and turned the corner onto the main street where ...

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Hellpico

Weekly Contest #326

The box of kitty litter thudded onto the driveway. There it could stay. I would have kicked the damn thing but that would only break my foot. Amazon drivers carry shit like this all the way to the front door…good thing I’m not an Amazon driver. I giggled to myself, “Heh heh heh.” We uttered this phrase around the office daily. It was always good for a laugh. It was starting to drizzle. Let it get wet. I hopped back in my mail truck and continued along the route. At the office, my boss came out of her office and said, “The old lady at 5585 Me...

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James, Jimmy to His Friends

Weekly Contest #325

The nurse, making her rounds, peeks into the dimly lit room and gasps. She turns away and pads as silently down the hallway in her crepe-soled shoes as the cat. Seeing the cat always gives her a little start though by now you’d think she’d be used to seeing him in the hospice care facility. The warm yellowy light emitting from the nightlight by the bed was no match for the crisp white moonglow beaming through the curtains framing the open window. Gertie was one of the old-timers who welcomed the cat’s final visit so she always slept with h...

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The Interloper

Weekly Contest #317

Moonlight on the wet cobblestones glistened like silver fishes skimming along the surface of an onyx river. The tall brick walls like crusty black sentinels, that enchanting cool blueish light shone in the uppermost windows enhancing the stony giant guardians with eyes like the eyes of God. Halfway down this alley sat three dumpsters like sleeping hulking beasts…the one in the middle seems to be waking up as the lid slowly lifts---just an inch, then two. A small grey arm reaches out, at the end is a little hand that pats around the edge of t...

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Cats Love Boxes

Weekly Contest #313

Clanketty clank a-clank…thumpty thump…rattle rattle rattle. The racket intensified as I held my breath. Thump. Creeeek. Erch. The sound was upon the road in front of our home. Rattley-rattley…screeeeeee…Silence for a minute. Then, Thud...silence for a minute, then, Schweeeer…schweeer…schwuuuure. Silence for a minute. Thump…thump…thump, silence for a minute. Then Thump…thuMP…thUMP…tHUMP…THUMP! Like the footsteps of an angry giant!Fee Fi Fo Fum! That part was entirely in my head although I was growing concerned.THUMP!I nervously opened the ...

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Good Daughters

Weekly Contest #309

I stared at Nick’s hands as they deftly wielded the thin silver instrument around the lemon, effectively slicing off a perfect curly-q of bright yellow peel. The movement of his hands and the delicacy of the peel bore stark contrast to the thick, long fingers punctuated with knobby, bony knuckles. It was like watching a mob thug conducting an orchestra. I glanced into his eyes, which were half obscured in shadow, and stifled a giggle. His ruggedly handsome face was contorted into the face of a young boy’s; his eyes sparkled with intense co...

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Rollin' with the Gnomies

Weekly Contest #308

Barnacle Winterbottom scratched his red-bearded chin as he and the cat sat amongst the dense summer leaves of the oak. ‘Scritch, scritch…’ His thick red brows a fat caterpillar low over hooded blue eyes. “Lightfoot my friend, we’ve got work to do.” The big striped tabby was lighter in color than Barny’s beard and thrice as large as the gnome. Lightfoot's pale green eyes were locked on the dog. “Don’t worry my friend, we’ll be rid of the dog in no time,” Lightfoot’s ear twitched, the cat’s white whiskers splayed forward as if tasting the dog’...

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Cannibal...Creature

Weekly Contest #307

The small skiff was crowded with the last seven survivors aboard---crew members of the infamous galleon, the Catherine’s Blood. We’d been at sea for sixty-nine days, according to Eli Upwind, the ship’s navigator, who read the skies day and night and had a head for numbers. Captain Avila nodded at Upwind’s latest decree, the nod went on until the captain’s unkempt, greying beard settled upon his chest. He appeared dead. Spiney and Jewels stole a wicked glance at each other, and I swear when Spiney skirted his mutant grey slug-of-a-tongue a...

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Lightning Fox

Weekly Contest #304

Lightning flashed so brightly out the window next to the desk, Max was nearly convinced the next bolt would come straight through it. And he almost welcomed it. He’d been sitting at his desk for over two hours staring at the blank page in his Underwood typewriter…and failing miserably to come up with a single string of words to start the short story he was hired to compose; the deadline loomed around the corner. He positioned his thin white fingers upon the black keys and once again the lightning flashed next to him out the window, making...

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Desert Gravesite

Weekly Contest #303

Tony scuttled around the boulder, desperate for the shade on the eastern side. He breathed a lungful of hot desert air that he convinced himself was slightly cooler than the air on the western side. He slumped against the rock and scooched under it like a scorpion with its tail curled around its delicately armored body.He heard the shouts of the man pursuing him, far, then closer. As his heartbeat slowed from a bass drum beat to a tom-tom, he heard what he was saying, “It was you who dunnit, it was you Tony…it was YOU!” The words were spoken...

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The Amulet

Weekly Contest #302

Birds of magnificent wingspan, figure-eighted gracefully---black pirouetters in the slate grey sky. The small boy in peasants’ grubby clothes kenned their presence like reading a map. He made his way down the hill to the bloody mesa, and the bodies were fresh. He wiped grime and sweat from his pale freckled face absentmindedly with his course-spun sleeve. It was a habit he’d done since he was a wee bairn when his parents had been alive; one developed nervous habits, when living in a war zone. *** Seven hours earlier… Rhys Hughes swung his...

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