Tag: haunting

All Stories, Horror

Danny by David Henson

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After a groan of a day at work, Harmon Donovan riffles through the musty comic books he salvaged from his mother’s estate sale. He feels something under the stack. A beak? Of course—Danny. Harmon turns the toy over in his hands. About six inches tall, the wooden duck stands upright. Harmon traces his finger down the head where the blue-green paint is chipped and fading. The plaything transports him to simpler times. Before his boss, Mr. Murphy. Before—

“Harmon, are you going to mow the lawn or not?” His wife’s sharp voice from downstairs pops his daydream.

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All Stories, Fantasy

A Shoddy Business by David Rudd

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Kenneth Waldron was a painter – quite a successful one – with a number of famous people seeking him out for portraits. It was mostly thanks to Cynthia Grossman, who had begun as his financial advisor before becoming his personal manager and, finally, his partner.

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All Stories, Horror, Short Fiction

By The Colour of Our Coat Shall You Know Us By J.S. Watts

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Where to begin? ‘Where’ being the significant word.

Some places seem to have been created to be a home for the disconcerting and unknowable. Dartmoor was the natural petri dish for The Hound of the Baskervilles. It is so… elemental. The dirty, dark and narrow alleys of Victorian London’s East End spawned Brother Jack, whoever he was, or might still be. But other places are so mundane you can’t imagine anything beyond the norm happening there.

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All Stories, sunday whatever

Sunday Whatever – They Don’t Walk Alone by M.D. Smith IV

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(Editor’s Note: This fine work by M.D. appears on a Sunday because it features what we refer to–often derisively–a Talking Untalkable. We seldom go for that sort of thing unless it is done with elan or in a well done fantasy. Both are the case here. Just a sweet little reminder from the Eds. that such items, unless loaded with charm, will be met with scorn, Bull Terriers and life insurance pitches–the Eds.)

They Don’t Walk Alone

I smelled the house before I ever saw it. Spirits inside—too many for comfort. Dust so thick it clung to the tongue. Beneath it all drifted the faint electric tang of souls stretched thin by years of being ignored, like old copper wire humming with frayed insulation.

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All Stories, Fantasy, General Fiction

Are You Going to Kalamazoo? By Christopher Ananias 

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Tonight Jack would talk to the ghost. He took to the street. The warm wind is blowing on his face. Splash—pound—Nikes scrape the edge of a curb. Whoa that was close. He lets his mind wander down into his feet. His mind is splash-pound.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

A Nobel Ending by Steven French

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Frank paused as he left the hotel and looked up and down Skomakargatan. With the sky shading into a deeper blue, lights were already coming on along the narrow street. To the left was Stortorget Square and Stockholm’s famous Christmas Market which he and Ellen had strolled around earlier that day. Exhausted from the jetlag and needing some rest from the bustle of the crowds, she was fast asleep in their room but Frank had too much nervous energy still and had decided to burn some off with a brisk walk.

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All Stories, Fantasy

Wailing Guitar by Steve Sibra 

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I was barely thirteen when my big brother Jimmy came home from school with a wailing guitar.  We were two kids caught up in an ongoing dispute between our parents over things we could not really understand, and we feared they were going to split up and we would become casualties of a broken home.   As a byproduct of this trauma the two of us had bonded over a budding and mutual love of rock music.  Somehow our mutual interest in rock guitar music had given us something to hang onto as our parents became more and more involved in petty bickering and outright bursts of anger.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Restless Souls by Alice Baburek

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No one really knows why restoration stopped on the abandoned St. Julian hotel, where commoners and kings once came to relax in luxury.But Bernie Yocum and her brother George Winton had their suspicions. The renovation/construction company they shared had been in their family for decades.

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All Stories, Fantasy

My Relationship With Frances Marie Sauvegeot, 1973 – 2001 By Martin Reid Sanchez

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HOW WE MET

You have to understand that my first glimpse of her was mostly obscured. The bar was dim and crowded, and I’d already had more than my share of scotch. And wasn’t feeling picky, having struck out three times already — so, after that first glimpse, I sidled right up and said the first slick thing I could think of, which ended up being something about how her dress caught the light. Only then did she turn to face me head-on, showing me what she was and exactly what I’d just done.

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