U is for Uxorious, and Once Upon a Nightmare: A Collection

For this year's A-Z Challenge I have selected a word from the dictionary for each day and written a story around it with a 100 word limit. For extra interest I have chosen words that are unknown or unfamiliar to me. All definitions are from the Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus 2007 Edition. Today's word is: Uxorious.

Uxorious: (of a man) very or excessively fond of his wife.

Douglas was extremely uxorious, his friends had always said; or would have, if their vocabulary was as wide as his. Fenella was his everything. That’s why, when the terminal cancer diagnosis came, he hadn’t wanted her to be humiliated and subjected to endless rounds of fruitless chemotherapy.

He’d come up with a plan so they’d never be apart, and be as one in the most intimate sense.

He savoured another delicious mouthful, her flesh tasting even sweeter than it had when she was alive. The gun sat alongside for after, waiting.

“Here’s to you, darling,” he said, raising his glass.

* * *

U is also for Once Upon a Nightmare: A Collection by Cherie Reich (yes, it is!) I read this superbly creepy collection on its initial release, and I look forward to seeing it get even more exposure in this new, revised edition.

A monster hunts us. After hibernating for a decade, it’s ravenous. We long to stop this nightmare, but the end of the road is far. There is no waking up once a legend sets its sights on you.

Disappearances every ten or so years make little impact on the small town of New Haven, Virginia. Hikers get lost. Hunters lose the trail. Even when a body is discovered, the inhabitants’ memories last about as long as the newspaper articles.

No one connects the cases. No one notices the disappearances go back beyond Civil War times. No one believes a legendary monster roams the forests in Southwestern Virginia.

I don’t either until the truck breaks down on an old mountain trail. Cell phones won’t work in this neck of the woods. It’s amazing how much a person can see by starlight alone. So what if we can’t feel our fingers or toes as we hike toward the main road. How many more miles left to go?

Crrraaack!

Hear that noise?

Purchase Once upon a Nightmare: A Collection by Cherie Reich at Amazon. The ebook is on sale for $0.99 until April 30th.

Cherie Reich is a speculative fiction author and library assistant living in Virginia. Visit her website and blog for more information.