This story is so weird. I did it anyway. I’ll be posting it in three or four parts.
Short Story: Science Fiction
Down for submission.
writing
The Fallowing – Epilogue
This is it! That was my book! Hoped a few people enjoyed it. I never actually meant to finish the silly thing, but it was what I needed at the time. I have another book on the way, so stay tuned.
Novel: Horror
As the train plows through miles of snow, I can see the runoff settling into the white expanse on either side, out the windows to left and right. It reminds me of days trekking short miles and nights sleeping short dreams, out in the cold wilderness. But those memories drift away in the presence of heating piped through vents, cushy carpets, ambient music in the dining cars, plush seats in the sleeping cars. Even my memories of home are fading, growing dim as if my mind can’t hold all these events, needs space to try to process everything. I’m tired and anxious and my heart hurts all the time, trying to tell me something. Still, I remember my promise to myself, to the world.
The End
Short story: Fantastical horror love story
Down for submission
Planning
Drabble: Horror?
He had studied for years, prepared for months. He limited his diet to emaciate his body. He tried different visualizations to free his mind. One night he imagined his self floating in a reservoir, the water slowly draining through a hole. He slipped through the hole, and out, and left his body, and was free.
He looked down upon his gently breathing shell on the bed and rejoiced. He floated up, away, his soul unencumbered, and only when he was satisfied did he return.
But he returned to a state of shock.
He hadn’t planned how to reenter his body.
The Gathering
I’m going to keep writing. It’s all I can do to deal with the hate that has manifested itself in my country. It’s the only way I can think of to cope unless I want to start drinking. Because I feel afraid and unsafe. My friends feel afraid and unsafe and I don’t know how to help them. So I’m going to write.
Drabble: I don’t know what genre
The new soul arrived tired, filled with regret, still reeking of death. It wavered in the field in the cold air, and cried out, though its voice didn’t carry. It was alone, as alone as it had been within its skin. But its skin had fallen away, and it was naked and without anchor.
Others rose from the creek, ephemeral shades stepping out to welcome it. They moved forward, wrapping themselves around it, calling it to join with them. Letting it know it was no longer alone, that it was now a part of a whole.
So the fog gathered.
The Fallowing – The Fifth, Part IX
Novel: Horror
Sam ducked as I shot. Did I mean to miss? Who can say? The bullet hit the window and the glass shattered and rained down onto the hardwood floor and the street below. Sam ran at me and dived at my stomach, knocking me on my back as well as knocking the wind out of me. Before I could get on my feet he was down the hallway, and though I shot at him I missed again. Screams rang out in the rooms, and Sam plunged down the stairs. I let off one more shot before he melted out of sight, but hit only the wall, showering plaster down the stairwell.
By the time I burst out onto the street he had vanished. I looked up and down the road and shouted out his name in a cry – it seemed to me – without end.
“Faye?”
I spun around and came face-to-face with Corrie, still half-bandaged, still timid. She jumped back at the sight of my gun.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
What’s Behind
I could possibly expand on this one later.
Drabble: Horror
She had never liked the covering of the mirrors that always came with funerals. She had seen them in the houses of her friends and distant family, black drapes hanging in odd areas in rooms and hallways, dripping off the walls, hiding reflections. But this time it was in her house. And after the guests left and her mother had gone to bed and the house was dark, she passed by the hidden mirror in the hall. The cloth billowed as she went by, and she heard her name called from it. A deep voice: the voice of her father.
The Fallowing – The Fifth, Part VIII
Novel: Horror
Sam tried to follow me along with the monster that had swallowed me, but it was far too fast, weaving back and forth around pedestrians with ease. Soon it was out of Sam’s sight. The snow was too well-trampled to show new footprints, and he had no clues on where it might be going. He ran back to where the encounter had happened, hoping to find Milo, hoping he could make some use of the boy. He was gone, frightened off by the monster, deciding that it just wasn’t worth torturing his ex tonight if he had to deal with that.
Sam looked up and down the street. Everything was business as usual. If anyone had witnessed what happened they had written it off as imagination or were inside being counseled that it had been imagination.
Sam went to room 11031, kicking the door in without bothering to knock. The latch smashed through the jamb easily enough, showering the room with splinters. Girls looked up blearily at his entrance, not jumping in surprise or standing in anger. Their eyes were empty, bored, perhaps only showing a slight relief that this newcomer wasn’t Amnon.
The Reflection’s Fault
Drabble: Horror
I was brushing my hair in the bathroom, watching my reflection in the mirror. I don’t know when it started, but the eyes of my reflection had unfocused from my own, had begun to look at a point over my shoulder. At something over my shoulder. Then my reflection’s mouth slowly, slowly opened in a silent scream. In shock, I backed away from the mirror and bumped into something and I spun around with such force my arm must have hit the mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
I swear, that’s how I got these cuts on my arms.
The Fallowing – The Fifth, Part VII
Novel: Horror
I actually took a step back, bumped into the thing behind me, and jumped. It clattered madly and wriggled around in its skin. Its mouth opened and though there was no tongue its teeth milled about, floating inside like glitter in a snowglobe.
“So that,” Amnon continued, “is why I waited until you two made a play for Milo. That was your plan, yes? To lure me somewhere to regain Milo?”
“Well, I suppose there’s no denying it now.” I looked directly at him, directly into his eyes. As dangerous as they were, they helped me ignore the monster at my back.
“But I knew when Milo was coming to see me, when you couldn’t. You could only waste time waiting, exposing yourselves. Sam never did have a reason to learn to be inconspicuous.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to keep my cool, trying to keep my voice from shaking. I shrugged my shoulders a bit too violently. “We failed. So what’s your plan with me?”
Smeared Black Ink 