Art: from the prompt "your uncle wearing a creepy hat" on Craiyon So, I'm up to something, maybe? I've been writing horror stories -- well, I think they're horror stories -- and I've been a little bit shy about sharing them, but, as is typical of things in horror stories, they find a way out nevertheless.
The literary magazine The Furious Gazelle had a Halloween short story contest and I submitted my story "The Man with the Hat" and I am tremendously honored that it won.
The Man with the Hat
As soon as Edie’s Uncle Sly came to visit, she wanted to kick him right back out. It was how he entered the house like he owned it, left his oversized tweed suitcase sitting directly in front of the stairs. He wore a jacket beneath his jacket—tweed, but not matching—and a tie and dark sunglasses and a collared shirt like the men at the bank. She watched his skinny form swimming in the collared shirt and thought of her father’s muscles ballooning out of his Sunday tee. Clearly, this invader was the loser.
“You must be Edie,” he said, sizing her up. “Tell my sister I’ve arrived.”
Most decrepit of all was his hat. That lopsided tweedy thing that only appeared distinguished in his mind. To its original owner, maybe, long before Edie’s uncle acquired it in whatever way he did (found it on the street? took it from the coatrack of a moldy office lobby?).
She turned to go but didn’t say anything. She thought he should at least thank her for allowing him inside.
Here is the whole entire thing.
