#short-stories

[chaotic-hypnotic-erotic]

Heartache

‘Are you certain of this place?’ asked Tymon. Imara nodded. ‘This is where we would gather – myself, Chaya, and Oria.’ She looked around at the interior of the taverna. ‘Everyone is welcome in here.’ She looked at Rathi, Anathana, Axan, and the two new arrivals – Kila and Mera. ‘Glad to hear that,’ said Axan. ‘The Blueback sells a wide range of foodstuffs,’ Imara said. ‘They import food from…

[quotelr]

This isn't where I intended to be. Killing a person has a funny way of getting your life off-track.

Erin Mitchell

[gunswordfist]

(TW Blood, Vampires, Gore) My Black Action Vampire Story. Please consider spreading the word about my 307 word story here, which will become a webcomic written and drawn by me one day. The link to my story also has a built-in text-to-speech feature https://medium.com/p/16b03156c714 :

BloodPunk Dracula

[1400s France]

An assortment of Black vampires are searching the night for somebody. A small light flashes in the distance and gathers all of their attention. A short Black woman donned in dark armor is transforming her gold magic ring from a large circle of blood into two iron weapons in preparation for the impending battle. She’s Dracula, the vampires' target. Her red eyes and new curving gold swords gleam back at them. They rapidly march their way through the snow towards her.

The fastest one arrives in seconds, only to get quickly chopped up by Dracula's golden blades. Dracula's short swords begin magically sucking in streams of blood from the vampire's wounds, forcing the unfortunate vamp's body parts to stay levitated in the night air. These lifeless husks finally hit the ground as the next foolish vampire comes to strike Dracula.

Their sharp nailed attack misses after a fast back step from the Queen of Vampires. The lesser vampire's clawed hand pierces through a building's outer wall instead. Dracula breaks the ground beneath her back foot to dash in at them with her weapons held out at each side. Her right blade runs right through the row of stacked bricks beside her. In under a second, she leaps and has that same sword slash up the wall and through the neck of the arm-in-wall vamp. Dracula's feet hit the snowy ground. She turns to promptly greet the rest of the now headless vampire's corpse with a violent dance of dual blades. This time Dracula uses her mouth to blood suck their red liquid from through the air to her opened red lips. After seconds of being rendered into a hover by Dracula's powerful blood feeding, the night creature's now shrunken bits rain into the soft snow. The next fool makes their way to Dracula...

[mindbat]

Keeping Score: 10 February 2023

As you can imagine from my last post (and lack of posting through Nov, Dec, or Jan), absolutely nothing went as planned, writing-wise, over the last three months. NaNoWriMo? Sure, I got 16,000 words into it before crashing and burning. Now I have two incomplete novels sitting on my laptop, waiting for me to pick them back up 😬 The TCF? Dropped it. Okay, I delayed it first, then dropped it.…

[chunkysoup22]

[thestuffedalligator]

“Are you the witch who turned eleven princes into swans?”

The old woman stared at the figure on the front step of her cottage and considered her options. It was the kind of question usually backed up by a mob with meaningful torches, and the kind of question she tried to avoid.

Coming from a single dusty, tired housewife, it should’ve held no terrors.

“You a cop?”

The housewife twisted the hem of her apron. “No,” she muttered. “I’m a swan.”

A raven croaked somewhere in the woods. Wind whispered in the autumn leaves.

Then: “I think I can guess,” the old woman said slowly. “Husband stole your swan skin and forced you to marry him?”

A nod.

“And you can’t turn back into a swan until you find your skin again.”

A nod.

“But I reckon he’s hidden it, or burned it, or keeps it locked up so you can’t touch it.”

A tiny, miserable nod.

“And then you hear that old Granny Rothbart who lives out in the woods is really a batty old witch whose father taught her how to turn princes into swans,” the old woman sighed. “And you think, ‘Hey, stuff the old skin, I can just turn into a swan again this way.’

“But even if that was true – which I haven’t said if it is or if it isn’t – I’d say that I can only do it to make people miserable. I’m an awful person. I can’t do it out of the goodness of my heart. I have no goodness. I can’t use magic to make you feel better. I only wish I could.”

Another pause. “If I was a witch,” she added.

The housewife chewed the inside of her cheek. Then she drew herself up and, for the first time, looked the old woman in the eyes.

“Can you do it to make my husband miserable?”

The old woman considered her options. Then she pulled the wand out from the umbrella stand by the door. It was long, and silver, and a tiny glass swan with open wings stood perched on the tip.

“I can work with that,” said the witch.

[jordanbolton]

“The Driver” by Jordan Bolton

My first book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ is out now! Order it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky

[mimimar]

the woman who holds the moon

prints available here. my cover for this month's issue of baffling magazine.

[plotpulse]

The Great Deck of Immortality Unleashed

Barnoby never liked New Year’s. Everyone else was out celebrating with fireworks, fancy parties, and silly resolutions, but not him. No, Barnoby’s parents had always told him that New Year’s was pointless. “It’s just another day,” they’d say. And so, while the rest of the world rang in the new year, Barnoby stayed in his musty basement, tinkering with his spells. Tonight, though, was a little…

[themasthead]

Unsettled: Episode 85

The Ghosts of Whisper Ridge Russet and amber leaves twisted in the autumn wind, clinging to the old trees. Like many of their brethren, they soon lost the struggle, whirling in the wind. Some landed on the thick green grass. Others on the cobblestone street nearby. Every tree in the park was setting free its leaves in anticipation of the coming winter. Neighborhood children giggled as they…

[erikgrove]

Creepy Nice 10/16/2024

Mustache Sightings I mentioned last time I will be doing panels and readings at OryCon. Here are the details of my schedule in graphic form! The Sky Above the Corn You can order copies of the Even Cozier Cosmic anthology from Underland Press now!!! My story is called “The Sky Above the Corn Is Full of Eyes and Teeth.” It’s about a little girl who goes to her grandma’s house to wait out an…

[traciehicks]

Get to reading it today at https://amazon.com/dp/B0D5395W33

[penstricken]

A New Beginning

It’s a funny old life. Penstricken began as nothing more than a blog to get the old creative juices flowing. It was a place where I could share my passion for all things fictional. Nothing more. Overtime it developed a modest following. I connected with other authors and book reviewers; conducted author interviews and published a few of my own stories. I was humbled to learn that some of my…

[superpet]

Family Ties

When he died, their father had an unexpected final request which was a surprise to Carol and Edward, who were urgently summoned to the office of their deceased father’s lawyer and executor of his estate, Malcolm DeVenny. After receiving the phone call from DeVenny that afternoon, Edward picked Carol up from the hotel where she had been staying for the duration of the funeral planning. She…

[edwardjane]

Incident on Tara: Treasland Trouble

Here is my 196th blog post, it was written for a challege on Auto Crit. Check out a tale of another world.

Here is another story I submitted to an AutoCrit Challenge The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like. E. L. Doctorow The less talent they have, the more pride, vanity, and arrogance they have. All these fools, however, find fools who applaud them. Erasmus The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence…