Real World Horror: A Trope of Trolls

     Despite my greatest wishes, I am still forced to leave my reclusive lair from time to time in order to visit with family, friends or (more importantly) get coffee. I rarely if ever have the trouble from those around me like I used to when I was more open about my beliefs and practices, but I still get one person from time to time that tries to push my buttons.

Take My Breath Away, Part One

The bass thrummed in a steady beat through the smooth walls, making the very stone beneath my back vibrate from the sheer volume pouring from the PA system within the new club. Looking at the long line I was standing in, at the various people swathed in black leather and satin, I fight back a smile as I look for someone to bring home tonight. I haven’t gotten any in days, and the familiar itch was beginning to become bothersome.

The cure, this time, is from the Club of the Damned.

Everyone Needs a Hobby

I always believed immortality was a curse, a wretched, miserable, eternal existence with no meaning. Any bond I formed with anyone else was fleeting at best, as years pass for me as days pass for the rest of humanity. I’ve ridden through the rolling hills of France, slaying all in my path to spread the glory of the Mongol horde, battled side-by-side with would-be priests during the Crusades, and even helped crush the Aztec empire and their dark covens of warlocks. Truly the thrill of battle gifted me with a second life, allowing me to finally… feel once more.

The New Year

     With the twilight hours of 2013 close at hand, I can only look back on this year and my writing and, in my own opinion, reflect on how much better I've gotten. Re-reading some of my older work, like "Growing Pains" my first published story, makes me think of new and different ways to write up tales of suspense and woe for all of my readers to enjoy.
     So this is perhaps my New Year's resolution, one that can be viewed in all of the days to come. I hope to further refine my writing skills, and perhaps actually finish a novel or two that I have sitting on my hard drive. "Jack in the Box" should be wrapped up by March, if I keep up the pace that I've been keeping. Perhaps I could get it published next Fall?
     Who knows, but as always, I wish you all sweet dreams. Hopefully a story of mine has made that difficult at one point. If it has happened, then I've done my job. 

Dark Eclipse #30

     Dark Eclipse #30 is out, and my oh my is it a fabulous looking issue! My column is one speaking of what we can look forward to this coming year, while we get to read five amazing short stories, one of which is a classic horror tale brought to you by Gertrude Atherton.

     So pull out your Kindle (or Nook) and download the most recent Dark Eclipse magazine! 

Growing Pains

I wake in a pool of my own sweat and urine, in the boiling furnace I loathingly called my new home. I’d moved in a week ago, taking over the old German mansion from my late Aunt Gertrude after she’d disappeared. Batty old loon probably wandered off into the woods and got eaten by wolves… but that’s neither here nor there.

Shortly after moving in I’d come down with some bug, the flu or something, and had been doing my best to stay healthy in the decrepit old place, in the dead of winter. Germany, for all its advances in science and culture, still could not master the blizzards that would come annually. I’d have probably been well on my way to recovery had I been able to leave the place, but thanks to the snow I was stuck there, fending for myself.

The fever had come on so suddenly I hadn’t a chance to do anything about it. The next day the chills began, followed by the worst nausea I had ever experienced. I was having to trouble keeping down water, though this was probably due to the fact I was forced to drink well-water. Lord knows what parasites dwelled in the darkness of that centuries-old hole…

“Shit!” I cry out as a wave of pain ripples through my stomach, echoing throughout my limbs, as if my veins are trying dance their way out of my body. This has been the latest symptom, crippling pain.  Now I know I can’t leave this hellhole even if I wanted to.

Another wave pulses through my frame, but unlike the others this one seems to end in… relief? Like the draining of an infected wound, it feels as if an unknown pressure was being lifted from my chest and stomach. I sigh in relief, pushing myself up onto my elbows with the plan of hobbling to the bathroom for a hopefully relaxing shower.

Instead I see blood-stained sheets decorated with my own entrails, leading from between my legs, which I can no longer feel and which are taking on a dangerous purple hue.

And then they start flowing out of me…

Thousands of small, gooey globules, colored red either naturally so with my own vital fluids, become minute spiders, that begin streaming out of me like water from a busted dam. Panicking, I try and pull myself away, but the numbness is rapidly spreading up my torso, leaving me weak. The spiders are now spiraling up my chest and arms, as hundreds more continue to carve their way through my body, oozing rivulets of blood pulsing randomly as spiders push their way through the newly carved tunnels.

My screams begin to waver as my throat goes cold, and go silent as the same spiders begin spewing forth from my mouth. Now in the silence I can hear them. No hissing, just a rhythmic chanting with each to go softly into this horrible night:

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

The Worley Woods, Part Two

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“Lydia…” Jeffrey’s voice whispered along the wind, the leaves billowing about, fluttering towards the rotting entrance to the darkness.

“Jeffrey! Stop playing around and come out here!” Lydia cried, glaring at the darkness, not daring to move forward for fear of the hole serving as an entrance into the foreboding shadowy maw.

The Worley Woods, Part One

“Jeffery!” Lydia called out drunkenly as she stumbled through the underbrush, swearing as her tights tore from a stray branch. Balancing on unsteady legs as she wove around the brambles, bottle of beer in hand, she sought out her wayward boyfriend in the woods behind the house thrumming with deep bass. They’d had a fight when he’d caught her kissing an old friend, a truly innocent thing really, and stormed off brazenly into the forest by himself.