Tag Archive for: Pauline Yates

Hooking the Ex

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by Pauline Yates

The audience whoops as I hug my ex. She’s lost ten pounds and is dressed to kill, but who cares? Play this right and tomorrow, I’ll be half a million dollars richer. I dumped her once. I’ll easily dump her again.

                                              ***

Returning his embrace, I slide my fingers beneath his shirt and dig my nails into his back. The audience goes wild, clapping and cheering at lost love found. But hooking up again was never about the money. It’s payback for a broken heart. The poison on my fingernails will do the job. By this time tomorrow, he’ll be dead.

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates is a horror and science fiction writer from Australia. Find her publications at: paulineyates.com

 

Form Rejection

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by Pauline Yates

Dear Author Alphabet Abuser,

We have refuse to read your submission drivel. and unfortunately You pulverised the prose so badly your story isn’t quite what we’re looking for right now unreadable. While wWe regretfully cannot provide detailed feedback due to the volume of submissions, won’t provide feedback. You are beyond help. we thank you for your interest in our magazine Never send us, or anyone, anything ever again.  and hope you continue to cConsider us in the future. becoming a serial killer or get a job at a slaughterhouse where your butchering skills will be more appreciated.

Regards,

The Editor

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates is an award-winning author of horror and science fiction from Queensland, Australia.

Website: paulineyates.com

Family Fetish

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by Pauline Yates

I resisted the urge for years, hoping the curse had skipped a generation and I’d be spared the gruesome reality that I was indeed the spawn of my father. He disgusts me with his morbid eating habits while I’m spooning down ordinary cereal. But today is different. Today I yearn to dip my fingers into his mug of blood and coat my tongue with the coppery taste. I reach out my hand, but Father slaps it away.

“Not mine, laddie.” He hands me a knife. “Yours.”

Taking the knife, I prick my finger and lick the blood.

I taste good.

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates is an award-winner author of horror and science fiction.

Website: paulineyates.com

Numbskull

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by Pauline Yates

For the third time, bone shards and chunks of brain splatter when Pete’s bullet hits the tree and ricochets. In a flash of brilliance, his twitching body returns to his maker again.

“How long will I repeat dying?” Pete asks, confounded by his death-loop.

“Until you admit you erred when aligning the riflescope,” his maker says. “It’s out by five degrees.”

“I’m a fifth-generation deer hunter. I don’t make mistakes.”

His maker smirks. “If you say so.”

Grey mist swirls. Pete peers through the riflescope, lines up the buck and squeezes the trigger.

Bone shards and chunks of brain splatter.

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates is the creative force behind Memories Don’t Lie and Dream Job and she enjoys drabbling in the dark. 

Website: paulineyates.com 

Tick Tock

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by Pauline Yates

The new virus spreading worldwide should be named after a clock. The nosebleeds begin exactly six hours after infection. At seventy-two hours, vision loss occurs. That surprised everyone. Many people died after crashing their cars or falling down stairs. They were lucky, I suppose. Brain rupture occurs bang on ninety-eight hours; a messy, drawn-out death in every case.

Though blind and bleeding, it took me less time to fashion a noose. Three hours and twenty-two minutes, to be exact. I just need a ladder. Frank next door has one. He’s not using it. He finished his noose two hours ago.

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates, author of horror and science fiction, writes dark stories and loves bright sunrises. 

Website: paulineyates.com

Aya’s Makami

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by Pauline Yates

Aya, the transfer student, acts nonchalant, but beneath her straight fringe, her enormous eyes glisten with new-school nerves, and she clutches a diary to her flat chest like a life support. Fool. That diary begs to be read. Especially by me.

I snatch the diary from her matchstick fingers. Flipping it open, I stare into the eyes of Makami. The divine protector looks into my heart, then gives a guttural roar and swallows me whole.

I’m not alone. Another bully hunkers in the beast’s belly, her round face whiter than a tsuki moon. Somewhere above us, savage teeth snap shut.

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates, Australian author of the sci-fi action/adventure, Memories Don’t Lie. Writes dark stories. Loves bright sunrises.

Website: paulineyates.com

 

Memories Don’t Lie by Pauline Yates – Launches 11th March 2023

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I was a compulsive daydreamer growing up, and I turned that into a writing career. What could be better than doing the thing you love most?

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Memories Don’t Lie by Pauline Yates

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Sarah Wilson’s journey takes a deadly turn when she uncovers secrets about her past, hidden deep in her mother’s memories, that threaten everything Sarah wants. They could cost her everything she holds dear—and her life.

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Spooned

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by Pauline Yates

Beechwood Psychiatric Hospital’s new nurse has a head full of ideas, like “kindness begets kindness”, that sort of shit. I play along. I stop smacking my head against the wall when she asks me, politely, mind you, to take my pills. Now she lets me eat ice cream with a spoon. I want her to eat ice-cream, too, but she won’t…

won’t…

won’t…

And that makes my head hurt like the spoon scoops out my brain. So I make her eat. Eat, and eat, until all her ideas burst out of her head.

I scoop them up and swallow them, too.

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates lives in Australia and writes horror and dark fiction.
Website: paulineyates.com

Pony for Christmas

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by Pauline Yates

 

My “ho’s” change to groans as I play the shopping mall Santa—my wife arrives with our granddaughter, Ester, and home-baked cookies for my tea break. I love Ester, but the cookies taste funny and belong in the bin.

Ester clambers onto my lap.

“What would you like for Christmas?” I ask.

She pouts. “A pony. Grandma’s making me wait until after she collects Grandpa’s life insurance, but I want one now.”

“Is she? Well, all good girls get their Christmas wish.”

And bad wives get a knife through the heart. I saw one on sale. I’ll get it gift-wrapped.”

 

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates writes dark stories with a pen she pinched from the dead zone.

@midnightmuser1