Ro Hollinrake

AVON LADY AND ANGEL CHARMS (2023)
When at last I had finished and had closed the catalogue, the Avon Lady was leaning forwards, so her face was very close to mine. She was nodding and smiling, and her lips were pulled back from her big teeth so that they were stretched thin, and you could see her gums, which were red, and looked sore. She smelt so strange, there was a sticky dead-flower smell on the top like pot-pourri, but underneath something smelt thick and rotten. I remember mum breaking an egg that had gone bad once and the smell was thick like this, and it reached into your nostrils and pressed hard against the back of your skull.
Published in Umheimlich, Soyos Books

EMPTY BELLY, SNOW, AND BOILED GRISTLE (2023)
Shortlisted for Globe Soup Genre Smash Competition (Western vs Horror)
That was the trouble with Afonso. The bastard had no imagination.

Hell, he didn’t need it, with the bodies they was bringing in. That was nightmare enough. Big bodies, men, strong men. Bodies that brought down bears. Bodies that broke the rocks to hollow out the mine. Warm, youthful bodies that - in life- were hearty as bucks, and would steam like one in the freezing air when they rode out to the mountains.

Now, in death, they had been rent into pieces, jointed like chickens from the coop by something with claws, their faces and bellies chewed at and mauled by some barbarian thing with teeth.

Marylin’s Dead (2022)
FIRST PLACE - NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition Round 2
“It’s the world’s largest pretzel, you know” gasped the girl, breathy with wonder.
“What?”
“Made special for this picture!”
Marcie pulled on her cigarette “Christ, they must be desperate.”
“What, ain’t you excited?”
Marcie almost said – no doll. I ain’t excited. I’ve been in this game for years. It’s a dying game. But the girl was fizzy with childish delight, and she sighed.
“Sure hun. It’s gonna be a great picture.”
Unpublished

The Bailiff (2022)
SECOND PLACE - NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition Round 3
”A face appeared in the window, and Elijah felt a scream bubble up in his throat. In the primal stillness of his fear, he recalled a word: ghastly. It seemed an antiquated word that spoke of stagecoaches and haunted mansions, but now it burned clearly in his mind. The face was cavernous and loathsome, couched in the brutal, hulking shoulders of a towering figure. It seemed to be gaseous, ethereal - made of the folds of the mildewed net curtains and the vaporous sodium glow of the streetlights. Its snarling expression spoke of debts owed, and grudges unforgotten.”
Unpublished

The Transcendental Sessions (2022)
IN CONTEST: FINALIST - NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition Finals
”Jerry felt the soul of Nina touch his. She was here with him. He imagined that she danced within the footprint of his drumbeat, spinning towards him, giddy at their reunion. He knew that to hold her, be near her, he must keep playing. Tears filled his eyes as he pounded the drums with the exuberance of a child. He understood now that she always fluttered on the edge of his waking life, and that – in blissful realisation – he could access her love so easily.”
Unpublished