Tag Archive for: microfiction

Faerie Etiquette

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by Jacqueline Moran Meyer

 

“Stop,” I yelled, too late. My fiancé had already plopped the lavender cake in his mouth. By the time I reached him, the Faerie had disappeared. I had schooled him on Faerie etiquette ad nauseum. Do not accept gifts.

“Didn’t you notice her pointed ears, glimmering skin?”

“Yum,” he mumbled.

“Did you say thank you?” I asked, my tone grim. His answer would decide our future together.

“Yep.”

Distraught, I handed back his ring and walked away.

Saying thank you to a Faerie resulted in her taking your firstborn.

I discovered my pregnancy that morning.

Where could I hide from the Faerie?

 

Jacqueline Moran Meyer

Jacqueline Moran Meyer is a writer, artist, and small business owner living in New York, where she received her master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. Jacqueline loves the science fiction and horror genres. Ray Bradbury, Alice Munro, and Rod Serling were great influences. Jacqueline also enjoys the company of her husband Bruce and their three children Julia, Emma, and Lauren. 
Website: jmoranmeyer.net

Fairies Gotta Eat

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by Stephen Herczeg

 

I found them at the bottom of the garden. Sparkling. Beautiful. Little winged people. They looked hungry, so I left a table covered with treats on the lawn.

Mummy and I went out. Daddy did the mowing.

As the garage door went up, Mummy started screaming.

There was the table. There were the treats.

There was Daddy.

Lying on the garage floor in a pool of blood. His face was gone. Just a staring skull. They’d gobbled it all up.

I warned him before we left. I did. I told him.

“Please don’t move the treats. The fairies gotta eat.”

 

Stephen Herczeg

Stephen is an IT geek based in Canberra, Australia. He has been writing for over twenty years and has completed a couple of dodgy novels, sixteen feature-length screenplays, and numerous short stories and scripts.
His horror work has been featured in numerous anthologies from Hunter Anthologies, Things In the Well Press, Dragon Soul Press, Blood Song Books, Monnath Books, and Black Hare Press. He has also had numerous Sherlock Holmes stories published through the Belanger Books and MX Publishing—Sherlock Holmes anthologies.

 

Spoiled Goods

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by Zoey Xolton

 

“Please!” the girl begged. “Let me free. I’ll give ye’ anythin’ ye’ desire!”

The faery turned to face her, the macabre collection of small animal skulls, and silver trinkets that adorned her waist jingling as she moved. She squatted before the terrified girl, fingering a cruel rippled blade.

“I’m afraid ye’ are it, child,” she answered. “My potion will no’ work without the unbroken heart of a virgin.”

The girl’s eyes grew wide and a relieved, almost hysterical laugh escaped her. “Then I canno’ be of use to ye’!” she cried. “My da has seen to tha’!”

The faery paled.

 

Zoey Xolton

Zoey Xolton is a published Australian writer of dark fantasy, paranormal romance, and horror. She is also a proud mother of two and is married to her soulmate. Writing is her passion. She is especially fond of short speculative fiction and recently released her debut collection Darkly Ever After.

 

Destroyed by Silver

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by Stacey Jaine McIntosh

 

The cold lingered, seeping into her bones. Nobody had thought to warn her what it would mean when she took up the mantle of the Faerie Queen.

“Majesty,” the centaur went down on one knee and bowed before her.

“You came,” she whispered. “Did you bring it?”

“I did.” He unwrapped the swaddling to reveal a tiny child. Though it looked human, it wasn’t.

She reached for the silver dagger she kept at her waist. And in a flash drew the knife and plunged it downwards into the infant’s chest.

The sacrifice was made.

The blood of her enemy spilt.

 

Stacey Jaine McIntosh

Stacey Jaine McIntosh was born in Perth, Western Australia where she still resides with her husband and their four children. Since 2011 she has had over one hundred short stories and twenty-two poems published. Stacey is also the author of Solstice, Morrighan, Lost, and Le Fay.

Poor Charlie

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by Hari Navarro

 

I was sixteen the first time. Never sensed anything like it. Such wonder. Worlds away from the fantastical lies that curled my toes and suppressed my exasperated sighs as the father spoke down from his pulpit.

Poor Charlie, loved since he was but a ball of foundling fur. His rot grabbed me and I sat transfixed as the faeries nipped, tugged, and gulped down the flesh from the now exposed cage of his ribs.

I called my parents—they, too, stared yet all they saw were mites and flies and maggots.

I was sixteen when I first encountered the fae.

Hari Navarro

Hari Navarro has for many years now been locked in his neighbour’s cellar. He survives due to an intravenous feed of puréed extreme horror and sticky-spiced unicorn wings. His anguished cries for help can be found via 365 Tomorrows, Breachzine, AntipodeanSF, Horror Without Borders, Black Hare Press, and HellBound books. 

 

 

Cold Blue

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by Kelly Matsuura

 

Celyna examined Davenall’s face with a critical artist’s eye.

“Your irises are like their own universe. Do all faeries have such icy blue eyes?”

“Just the naughty ones,” Davenall teased.

“How will I paint the moving colours?” she mused.

“Look deeper.”

“Okay.” Celyna locked her gaze on his. She tried to blink but couldn’t. She tried to turn her neck, also couldn’t. The swirling, entrancing pools made her dizzy. Her entire body shook.

Davenall held her tight. “A little more.”

“Stop! Don’t do this!” She realised too late that he was draining her creative essence.

“Leanan sídhe.”

An artist no more.

Kelly Matsuura

Kelly Matsuura writes diverse YA, fantasy, and literary fiction.
She is the creator of The Insignia Series anthologies (Asian fantasy themed) and has had stories published with Ink & Locket Press, A Murder of Storytellers, Black Hare Press, Harbinger Press, and many more.

Spoils

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by Chris Bannor

 

She held the knife between her teeth, hands buried second knuckle deep into the beating heart of her prey.  In the deep of the woods, no one remembered to look for her kind anymore. They were easy prey, especially when they saw her diminutive size.

She might be no taller than a human child, but she was no innocent. When the others came into her sidhe, they learned.  The fae may be small, but her bite was ferocious, and her tastes were bloody.

She drank, the hot splash of copper racing over her tongue was welcome after her well-won fight.

 

Chris Bannor

Chris Bannor is a speculative fiction writer who lives in Southern California. Chris learned her love of genre stories from her mother at an early age and has never veered far from that path. You can follow Chris on Facebook @chrisbannorauthor

Infinity Mirror

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by Beth W. Patterson

 

Why is the flora on my family’s land suddenly so much thicker?

The sharp cry of a baby freezes me in my tracks. If someone abandoned a child, I have to make sure that it doesn’t die.

Wriggling on a bed of ferns is an infant girl. But the most unsettling thing is the birthmark on her cheek. It’s identical to my own.

The figure stepping into the clearing could pass for an old photograph of my mother as a young woman.

My eyes are reflected in her dagger. Her wings unfold as she croons, “Now the cycle begins again.”

 

Beth W. Patterson

Beth W. Patterson was a full-time musician for over two decades before diving into the world of writing. She is the author of the books “Mongrels and Misfits” and “The Wild Harmonic” and a contributing writer to over thirty anthologies. Patterson has performed in nineteen countries and never sleeps.

 

Paradise Mobile Estates 2016

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by V.A. Vazquez

 

He sat on the secondhand couch in their mobile home, springs prodding into his lower back. Flipping the tab on another can of Bud Light, he watched the moths flutter around the trailer park. One of them, with wings the same colour as greasy pizza boxes, flew a little too close to the bug zapper and then…

Zzzzzzp!

It crumpled onto the patchy grass sprouting in front of their doorstep. As he listened to the radio next door playing música tejana, he flexed the broken wingstalks between his shoulder blades.

“Yeah, bud,” he said, toasting the fallen moth. “Me, too.”

 

V.A. Vazquez

V.A. Vazquez writes urban fantasy and dark romance. She currently lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with her husband and small doggo.
Website: www.vavazquez.com.

Mirror, Mirror

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by S.O. Green

 

The mirror is cracked and the cracks are spreading.

It started when I scratched the symbol on the glass. The one from the book. The one I couldn’t get out of my head.

In every line, I see a nightmare. In every facet, I see a dream. In the centre is a keyhole. Beyond, another world.

It whispers to me in my sleep. It calls to me while I work. I taste its colours and hear its darkness and feel its gentle music on my skin.

My reward is coming.

The cracks are spreading. Now they’re spreading across the walls.

S.O. Green

Simone Oldman Green lives in the Kingdom of Fife with husband, John. Writer, vegan, martial artist, gamer, occasionally a terrible person (but only to fictional people). They thrive on the unusual, which might explain why there are so many cats. Find them at https://thebasementoflove.blogspot.com/.