Living on Writer's Block

“She was back, Samuel, only different. She was young, and beautiful, and all in black and red instead of the pink she used to wear. And she was sitting on a throne, high above me; and she had horrible burns across the side of her face and all down her body.” “I don’t care what…

She stepped forward and flung her arms around his neck. He smiled and returned the hug warmly. “Thank you, Pierre; you’re wonderful,” she whispered, her eyes slightly damp. She stepped back and brushed at them hurriedly. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said in a husky voice. 

She looked around at the walls, reminded strongly of the Matron’s under-deck. It gave her the shivers. But instead of cells, the walls were lined with sacks of spices, crates and barrels of food and ale and wine, shelves lined with pottery and jewel-cases, and she was delighted to find several folded stacks of cloth.…

He turned to his own crew and nodded. Whooping and yelling, they swarmed across the ship while a few stayed to watch the captives. They would get a turn later, when their replacements traded out with them. Samuel turned to Ramona again. “See, that’s the thing the rest of them don’t like. Just because I’m…

Her eyes narrowed by degrees, a reddish-gold gleam of anticipation in their depths. She was motionless as a fire, only the edges of her silhouette moving as her hair and skirt rippled and leaped in the wind. She caught sight of Samuel looking at her from a little ways away, and her mouth quirked up…

The room was silent, but beyond the door, she heard noises. She quickly dropped out of her hammock and pulled her boots on, noting dismally that the sole of her right boot was coming off, and went out the door. The crew were all talking animatedly and hurrying around the ship, and she rushed up…

“Please, dear, won’t you help your Matron? Think of how well I treated you, you were my second-in-command! You won’t get such treatment from him, I can tell you that, dear,” she said, in her old poisoned-sugar voice.  Her pleas rang agonizingly in Ramona’s ears. A fire-eaten, pale, sea-bloated Matron wobbled toward her with her…

Ramona Redhawk bolted upright, shaking and gasping for breath, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. As she moved she was conscious of the familiar burning that started around her ankles and then raced in circles around her body, moving upward like a cyclone of burning sparks rushing over her. She gritted her teeth…

As the ghoul raised his face with its enormous, plastered-on grin, and began to shamble toward her with a needle in its overlong, bony fingers, she shut her eyes tightly. As the horrible old man raised the needle, she gritted her teeth in preparation but even then, as the needle plunged deep into her shoulder,…

“I-I’m sure,” she said breathlessly, then gave a slight cry of alarm as Samuel suddenly stepped off the yard arm into empty air and plunged downward.