The Bell

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by C.M. Saunders

 

Cancer.

The very word is enough to give you chills. It consumes you, and eats you from the inside out.

My mother was already widowed when the disease sank its claws into her.

I am an only child. I had to do the right thing, so I moved back into my old childhood home to look after her. I converted a downstairs room, put in a TV and some books, and gave her a bell to summon me.

I can hear the bell now, even above the constant din of the wind and the rain.

My mother died last week.

 

C.M. Saunders

Christian Saunders, who writes fiction as C.M. Saunders, is a freelance journalist and editor from south Wales. His work has appeared in over 80 magazines, ezines and anthologies worldwide and he has held staff positions at several leading UK magazines ranging from Staff Writer to Associate Editor. His books have been both traditionally and independently published, the latest release being a collection of short fiction called X: Omnibus.

Please visit my website for more information.

Awful Alphabet

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by Evan Baughfman

 

“Daddy, they taught me my ABC’s!” my three-year-old, Lizzie, proudly declared. In her tiny hands, she held the spirit board I’d unearthed from behind the basement wall.

I snatched it away from her. “‘They’? ‘They’ who?”

I didn’t see the steak knife until she’d removed it from her pocket. Didn’t catch the crimson gleam in her eyes.

“D-I-E, Daddy!” she roared with voices not her own.

Growling, my little girl sprung on me with a bestial fury. The serrated blade slid between my ribs and twisted just beneath my heart.

“They” had come to teach me a lesson, as well.

 

Evan Baughfman

Evan Baughfman works in a very scary place: a middle school! He writes all genres, but horror is where he’s most comfortable. Much of his writing success has been as a playwright. He’s had many different plays produced across the globe. Heuer Publishing has published his Poe adaptation, “A Taste of Amontillado”.

Additionally, Evan has adapted a number of his short stories into screenplays, of which “The Emaciated Man” and “The Creaky Door” have won awards in various film festival competitions.

Evan’s “Ugly Sweater” was recently published in Grinning Skull Press’s 2018 Christmas horror anthology, O Unholy Night in Deathlehem.

 

The Dream Merchant by Joel R. Hunt

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The dream merchant couldn’t complain; business had never been better. Everyone knew he supplied only the richest and sweetest of dreams.

What fewer customers realised was that stocks had been running low for months. He had started using his own dreams to keep up with demand.

As he refilled the empty storeroom, his daughter ran in with a smile.

“I want to help,” said the girl, holding out a glowing sphere. The bright dream of a child.

The merchant cupped his daughter’s hands and closed them.

“No,” he said, “I only sold my dreams so that you could keep yours.”

The Kid-napper by Stuart Conover

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Josh never thought that he would be a kid-napper.

Yet when properly motivated, he’d do anything.

They knew just how to manipulate him.

No one really believed that it was a Satanic cult that lived at the edge of town.

Now he knew better.

The authorities didn’t seem to believe him that they had taken Stacey.

It didn’t make sense, until the Sheriff pulled him aside and revealed the truth.

He was part of it.

They needed his access to the kids.

She’d go free with his help.

Because of this, Josh ended up here.

Surrounded by thirteen baby goats.

The Glutton

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by John A. DeMember

 

The infernal flames licked at his alabaster, gnarl-spined body.

Frail and naked, he wiped his vomit glazed chin and glanced up at the bone-house hordes crowded around the smoldering river’s edge.  Eternally famished, they covered the shattered landscape like a blanket of human sorrow.  On hands and knees, each cadaver feverishly clamored their way to the muck.

Somewhere hidden, dark sentries screeched while their piercing, stab-wound eyes scanned the fire ravaged expanse of the jagged, sulfuric wastes.

His memory again flooded by sin, he quickly plunged his gluttonous mouth back into the ghastly bile, and chugged, and chugged, and chugged.

 

John A. DeMember

John A. DeMember is a U.S. Army veteran and a high school English teacher with a passion for writing horror.   When John isn’t teaching, correcting, or writing, you might find him either at The Tower visiting Xur or somewhere in the wasteland battling bloatflies.

Stay up to date with John on Amazon: www.amazon.com/John-A.-DeMember/e/B00EWT35DE

 

Headmoths

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by J. Motoki

 

His last words hiss under the pendulum of the lightbulb. Flash burns, sloughed flesh. He is an insect collapsing on itself, body rocked by spasms, arched back, feet drumming the basement floor.

Dad, attending to death, stumbles through the house at odd hours. His child sleeps with both arms wrapped around himself. Dad the County Coroner, searching for truth in flesh and fluids, doesn’t notice his child sleeps too long, too often.

The boy leaves clues in dust and shadows. He disintegrates into a thousand flying things in the white eye of the light.

How long until the Coroner comes?

 

J. Motoki

Motoki earned her BA in Literature at University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the Short Story Editor for Coffin Bell Journal and Assistant Editor for Rune Bear Magazine. Her works have been published in Nowhere.Ink, Rue Scribe, Blood Song Books, and Coffin Bell Journal, with one flash nominated for The Best Small Fictions 2019 (Braddock Avenue Books).

 

Your Ride Has Arrived

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by Evan Baughfman

 

The hearse came to a silent stop alongside the curb. The driver asked through the open passenger-side window, “You remember what happened at the bar tonight?”

I’d gone into downtown, ordered a cocktail at O’Grady’s, and then…Then…?

The hearse’s rear door creaked open.

“Plenty of room in the back.”

I realized I was part of a small crowd, standing together in a blanket of fog. Nearly everyone looked as confused as me.

Nearly everyone was riddled with bullet holes.

I had a gaping cavity in my chest.

The driver said, “Come on in, everybody. You’ve all got the same destination.”

 

Evan Baughfman

Evan Baughfman works in a very scary place: a middle school! He writes all genres, but horror is where he’s most comfortable. Much of his writing success has been as a playwright. He’s had many different plays produced across the globe. Heuer Publishing has published his Poe adaptation, “A Taste of Amontillado”.

Additionally, Evan has adapted a number of his short stories into screenplays, of which “The Emaciated Man” and “The Creaky Door” have won awards in various film festival competitions.

Evan’s “Ugly Sweater” was recently published in Grinning Skull Press’s 2018 Christmas horror anthology, O Unholy Night in Deathlehem.

 

A Psi of Relief

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by Shawn M. Klimek

 

Once the mushroom’s psychotropic effects kicked in, Philip and Janice realized they could read each other’s minds.  The thought stream which culminated in their copulation went as follows:  I sense we’re both horny. Horny, not desperate. Screw you, then. Sorry, that just came out. Don’t pity me. Your vulnerability is attractive. Your compassion is sexy. Oh, screw it, let’s do this.

It was during the post-coital denouement, a morphing, emotional stew of confused lust, self-loathing and disillusionment that the telekinetic effects kicked in, allowing Janice to satisfy herself and Philip to stack all the beer cans into an impressive tower.

 

Shawn M. Klimek

Shawn M. Klimek’s stories and poems have been published in scores of e-zines and anthologies, including “Grumpy Old Gods, Volume 1”, Zombie Pirate Publishing’s “World War Four”, and “Gold: The Best of Clarendon House Anthologies, Volume One, 2017/2018. Find more, including links to all his published works at A Jot In The Dark

 

Other Oceans

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by Blair Frison

 

An epidemic of suicide and madness swept the planet as the Thing neared. Many believed it was God himself, bringing with him his promised purge.

As the shape in the sky grew more rapidly, Earth was unchained from her eternal path, succumbing to the immense gravitational pull. Soon, the Thing was so close, its face filled the spinning horizons. The sky was a fast-flowing sea of eyes and teeth, a sight that brought the remnants of humanity to their knees.

Titanic jaws chewed through continents ravenously while the beast continued on without pause, savouring its sustenance as Earth died screaming.

 

Blair Frison

Blair Frison lives with his family on the island of Cape Breton. He has written for various publications such as Year’s Best Transhuman SF 2017, Fossil Lake IV: SHARKASAURUS!, The Edge: Infinite Darkness, Deadman’s Tome, Boxing 24/7, and Haunt of Horrors. Blair is currently working on a collection of  stories.

 

Cosmic Horror

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by Dustin Pinney

 

Ray saw the asteroid long before anyone. He understood, has always understood, that space, with all its wonders, wants us dead.

For years he searched the sky for the one constellation missed by vast generations of stargazers, the sum of the Zodiac, the sinister face scowling at mankind.

On a ridge in San Pedro de Atacama, the cosmic clockwork came into view, a billion points of blazing light sneering on the little man facing it down in defiance.

The rock spat from the mouth of the cosmos barreled towards him. Trembling with rage, Ray said, “No.”

And the universe blinked.

 

Dustin Pinney

Dustin lives and writes various kinds of things in upstate New York. He is both inspired and terrified by outer space.

He has published short horror, sci-fi and fantasy stories in both print and online venues, as well as dozens of articles for letusnerd.com and doctorwhonews.net. His screenwriting work has produced several short fan films, commercials for Marina Vape, and content commissioned by New Japan Pro-Wrestling.