Tag Archive for: dark moments

The Burial Plot

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by Susmita Ramani

 

Waking, I’ve never experienced such absolute darkness and silence. Peeling apart my clasped hands, I feel around. Above me and to my sides is wood. Below me is satin. I smell fresh earth. I can’t stop sweating and shaking, feeling waves of heat like I’m being dipped into boiling water. I take deep breaths and hold them, focusing on each inhale, to avoid hyperventilating. I have an hour, maybe two. Positioning my hands, palms out, in front of my chest, I press upward. Nothing. Again. After some amount of time, I hear a sound: wood splintering.

It’s like angels singing.

Susmita Ramani

Susmita lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with their husband and two children. Their work has appeared in The Daily Drunk, Nymeria Publishing (winner of March 2021 poetry contest), 50 Word Stories, and Vine Leaves Press, and will appear in upcoming issues of Short Fiction Break and Secret Attic. Twitter: @susmitabythebay

 

Dilapidated

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by Alyson Hasson

 

The doorknob slipped from her grasp as the oversized emerald door swung open, exposing the darkness within. Her heart pounded—the door should have been locked. Frigid water encompassed her feet as she stepped into the void. The walls leaned inwards around her, thick moss coating their surface.

The door slammed shut, casting her into blinding darkness. Her breath caught in her throat. The pungent scent of mildew filled her nostrils, and tinnitus stifled her hearing. A shrill scream escaped her lips as waterlogged walls draped around her. They bore down onto her, sucking the oxygen out of her lungs.

Alyson Hasson

Alyson Hasson grew up in New Brunswick, Canada, where she obtained her biology degree and a love for nature based horror. Her interest in horror movies, combined with her background in biology, spurred a curiosity that led to the drafting stories of her own. Instgram: @Alyson.Hasson 

 

Where Angels Fear

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by Kimberly Rei

 

The churchyard trembled at night. Pauly said that wasn’t possible. Pauly was full of shit. Stand off the property and it was fine, but so much as one toe over the edge and there it was. The ground was afraid. The old small church was scared right down to it’s last nail. If you listened closely, if you could get past the trees rustling, you could hear the pews tremble.

No one had attended mass there in decades. Centuries, maybe.

But they still buried their dead on that land. I know. I tended the graves. And I felt them quiver.

Kimberly Rei

Kim has taught writing workshops and edited novels for Authors You May Recognize. She has three published short stories and has become a greedy beast, hungry for more. She currently lives in Tampa Bay, Florida with her beautiful, supportive wife and an abundance of gorgeous beaches to explore.  studio-rei.mailchimpsites.com

 

Hospital Corridors

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by Dale Parnell

 

The nurse at the main desk said my father had been moved; G-ward, at the other end of the hospital. I had missed visiting hours, but they said the rules were relaxed for certain patients. I knew what they meant.

It’s surprising how quiet a hospital can be.  Long corridors with cold fluorescent tubes flickering overhead. Naked, abandoned beds, stripped of warmth and comfort.

Once or twice I thought I heard footsteps, but I never saw anyone.

When I finally arrived at my father’s ward, the duty nurse gave me the news, and I understood whose footsteps I had heard.

Dale Parnell

Dale Parnell lives in Staffordshire, England, with his wife and their imaginary dog, Moriarty. He writes fiction, mainly fantasy, science-fiction and horror, along with the occasional poem. He has self-published two collections of short stories and a poetry collection to date, and is featured in a number of excellent anthologies. You can find Dale on Facebook at www.facebook.com/shortfictionauthor

 

Dared

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by S. Jade Path

 

Her friends had dared her to enter the ward. She was young, brash, invincible—foolish. Her breath chuffed out. Teenage pride.

The wind wended through the shattered halls; a remnant of laughter, and a memory of screams.

A shriek of tortured metal and the scent of old blood rise into the air where her hands settled on one of the bed frames rusting in the gloaming.

Her eyes skimmed the scarred floors, littered with detritus.

In the corner, empty liquor bottles surround a wilted mattress. Mostly hidden by a shred of faded blue denim, her skull stares back at her.

S. Jade Path

S. Jade Path is a fledgling author of small fiction and a prolific creator of dark poetry. She has had a life-long obsession with crawling into the depths of the psyche and forging shadows into words. Her work parallels this penchant for delving into the fantastical and strolling amongst demons. https://www.facebook.com/SJadePath

A Nice Long Soak

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by Mike Rader

 

I heard them climbing the stairs. Tourists. Mayday Hills Asylum attracted the morbid to Beechworth.

I waited on the second floor of that Victorian pile. In the bathroom. Where each tub has a sturdy wooden cover. Back in the day, only an inmate’s head was visible when the attendants poured scalding hot or freezing cold water over the poor unfortunate locked inside. Shock treatment, they called it.

Two kids entered. Gawking.

“Bet they screamed,” the boy said.

“Gross,” the girl said.

I smashed their heads together, bundled them into a bath, locked the lid.

Boiling hot water did the rest.

Mike Rader

James Aitchison is an Australian author and poet.  He writes horror and noir fiction under the pseudonyms Mike Rader and JJ Munro.  As James Lee, his horror and mystery stories for middle readers are bestsellers in Asia. His work is featured at www.flameoftheforest.com

Where the Dead Things Are

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by L.J. McLeod

 

Wendy hated the morgue. As the hospital’s night cleaner, it fell to her to keep it spotless. But that didn’t make it any less creepy. The silence felt heavy and the smell of cold corpse hung in the air as she mopped. Tonight’s storm only made it feel more oppressive. Lights flickered periodically and she could hear the thunder rumble through the walls. Her heart began to race at the thought of being trapped down here in a power outage. Sudden darkness filled the room, making nightmare reality. A cold hand seized her shoulder.

“Don’t worry. You’re never alone here.”

L.J. McLeod

L.J. McLeod lives in Queensland, Australia. She works in Pathology and writes in her spare time. She has been published in several anthologies and has been nominated twice for the Aurealis Award.  In her spare time she enjoys diving, reading and travelling.

Fleeting Fame

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by Colleen Anderson

 

Daiyu gasped. This rare discovery—a complete warrior’s burial chamber—ensured her career trajectory.

She pulled a carved jade amulet off the leathery mummy’s chest. The lantern flickered, the chamber echoing with more than falling water. Howling whooshed up the tunnel. Misty apparitions sliced her like freezing knives as she tried to block their access to the sarcophagus.

Slashing with archaeological picks did nothing as they dived into the shrivelled warrior’s form. Clawlike fingers twitched.

Taking the lantern oil, she doused the rousing body. Daiyu dropped a match, and flames cleansed everything, consuming the zombie.

There would be other finds.

Colleen Anderson

Colleen Anderson writes fiction and poetry, and her works have appeared in such publications as Polu Texni, Pulp Horror Book of Phobias, On Spec, and Cemetery Dance. A Body of Work was published by Black Shuck Books. She lives in Vancouver, BC, where she watches for mermaids and mould monsters.

Bartender Lobotomist

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by Jodie Angell

 

A sharp wind whistled through the forest. The abandoned bar’s shutters rattled. Leaves fluttered through the open door to join the broken glass. Fluorescent light flickered.

A blown transformer snuffed the last of the light.

The bartender downed a shot of Tequila, then descended into the cellar; her makeshift practise.

She grabbed her finest knitting needle and twisted it between her fingers.

Her captive fought against his leather restraints—his screams muffled by the wad of cloth in his mouth.

She clamped his head against the chair and pressed the needle into his eye. “This may hurt just a little.”

Jodie Angell

Jodie lives in rainy Wales, United Kingdom with her partner. She drinks lots of flavoured coffee—pumpkin spice is her favourite. She has a passion for the high fantasy genre, and her debut novel is due for release on April 15th with Champagne Book Group. She’s recently expanded her writing repertoire to cover dark fiction which she thoroughly enjoys. She’s now officially a part of the BHP family (yay!)—her first contribution was written for Hell. https://www.facebook.com/Jodie-Angell-Author-102185304807211

The Diner

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by Tracy Davidson

 

Manager and monster struck a truce.

It was easy enough, in an out-of-town diner, to drug an on-foot drifter or a hitcher in between rides. Easier still to escort them out back, leave them unconscious in a dark corner, hidden from the highway.

Like this vagrant, tonight.

The manager retreats. He watched once. Never again.

The monster smells fresh meat. It’s hungry. No prey comes near his territory anymore. It prefers human flesh anyway, however seldom it appears.

It bites…slashes…gorges on gut and gore.

Before morning, the manager will clear the mess away. As a good brother should.

Tracy Davidson

Tracy Davidson lives in Warwickshire, England, and writes poetry and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in various publications and anthologies, including: Poet’s Market, Mslexia, Atlas Poetica, Modern Haiku, The Binnacle, A Hundred Gourds, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR, In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights.