“I don’t like this, Lanceton.” Dr. James tried to look away from the grotesque statue, but the recently discovered crypt under the ruins of Mortwood Abbey was otherwise empty. His eye, finding no resting place in the Stygian gloom, was drawn back to the dreadful thing.
“Superstitious?”
“No. Just prudent.”
“Hmmph! Say, you’re the classicist. Be a good chap and translate that inscription?”
“CUM INSCII CENTUM FABULAS CENTUM VERBORUM SCRIBERINT REDEBO.” James hardly hesitated. “I shall return when the unknowing have written a hundred hundred-word stories.”
“Madness! Whoever heard of hundred-word stories?”
There was a grating, scraping sound behind them.
Author’s note: This story is a not-too-serious tribute to M.R. James, doyen of the antiquarian ghost story.
I like the tribute to the site on which your story is published. Hundred-word stories is indeed madness!!!