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Latest Stories

March 19, 2024
Fantasy Stories Wondering Monk

Just My Imagination

The alarm clock went off and started playing an awful tune. Tom opened his eyes and closed them back, squinting. He reopened one eye and stood up to stop the torture. The phone was on the desk, in the furthest spot from the bed. Although he changed his way of…
March 19, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Ocelotlzin

Earth Is Dead

Recording… It doesn't matter who I was; I probably lived a long time ago, and I am now just a voice someone added to the audio-visual records. What is essential is the recollection of events that lead to the current state. So, a little history needs to be…
March 08, 2024
Flash Fiction Benoit

Some Enchanted Evening

It was a rugby tackle with tears: Chrissy burst in, sobbing and babbling, hugging James. Her face was all wet, eyes wild. What…? My parents split up, Dad has moved in with his boyfriend and I cannot join them. I am shut out. I have lost my dad. Torrent of…
March 08, 2024
Horror Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

In The Hands Of My Legs

The car pulled up in front of the large salon. The neon sign, that sexy broad thing, on the salon'sroof read "Mr. Gil's All-night Salon". The exhaust pipe of the car was pumping solid smoke, theswirls moving from the car and towards the salon.…
March 07, 2024
Mystery Stories Vanessa Leigh Giles

Casualty of Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Chapter 1 Until Death do us Part ‘Ring, ring!’. I answered the telephone and asked, “Hello, good evening. Who’s this? “Hello.” This is Dr. Smith from Red Cross hospital. “Is this Mr. Locke, John?”, he asked, hesitantly scratching his bald head. “Yes, doctor.…
March 07, 2024
Crime Stories Robert Pook

Bar Room Trigger

Another return journey on footpaths so familiar. He strides across each crack in each paving stone. Regular loose drain covers sidestepped. Mapping long ago mapped in Richard’s desolate mind. His pace hastened by the sight of the oncoming storm. Quickening…
March 04, 2024
Horror Stories Ano Chinemerem

Sanctity

Where should I begin? I could begin by telling you about this comely boy, whom every notable person around the streets agrees his smile could charm the bills off one. Between one smile, there was his goodness, his dreams and humanity—a little far ahead?— but…
March 04, 2024
Flash Fiction Emanuel Diaz

Et Mortui Partium

As Rafael stepped out into the rain, it wasn't the ordinary drops that fell from the sky. Instead, it was a storm of souls, each one taking the form of shimmering jewelry as it cascaded toward the ground. Rubies, diamonds, and sapphires twinkled amidst the…
February 29, 2024
Poetry Jing Li Ava

London

‘Am I in London?’ "I am." Where is Elizabeth? Happy living story All of your chapter Bounlance joy Please my heart Power hand Wise mind Our baby Vow vow Love all love Miss I miss Endless wonder Bring us together Love all love Miss I miss For everything My…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Rob Pook

Life Sentence of The Smith

Born nine months after his country won the World Cup.A child prodigy.Cast off at age twenty-four.Husband, father, emigree, away on the other side of the world.The blue-collar life.The dreams of success.The search for fulfillment.The long years of empty…
February 29, 2024
Mystery Stories Joshua Lowther

The Operator

Jason looked over to his right, his eyes barely able to focus themselves on the subject of his attention. His neck ached terribly from the strenuous movement. He was tired. The captain’s gaze came to rest on the rookie sonar operator sitting tense at his…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Salvatore Difalco

The Chute

At dusk, we left our unit with a soft pink bundle. I carried it through the wet streets and into the black woods. I said I’d take it all the way, the bundle, but that we had to drop it in together. My wife’s green eyes flashed. “Don’t make me do that.” I…

“Slow down!”

“Why?” said Pete, easing his foot off the accelerator slightly. “It’s three o’clock in the bloody morning. The coppers are asleep. Gimme that bottle!”

“It’s dangerous,” replied his long suffering girlfriend, Kelly, before reluctantly handing him the bottle. She was used to his penchant for speeding and criminal disregard for safety. An urgent reminder in the form of loud verbal abuse was usually all it took to bring him back into line, even if it never lasted very long.

“It’s so dark,” she said.

“It’s night time, stupid!”

They always travelled at night. In fact they did everything at night. She didn’t really know why, it was just the way they were. Living a life of occasional highs under a smothering blanket of darkness.

A sign appeared on the left of the narrow highway, shining briefly in the unearthly glare of the headlights. Kelly read it out loud in a tone of forced interest, as she often did, mocking Debra Winger’s senile father in Forget Paris.

 

Welcome to Hell.

A New South Wales tidy town.

pop. 653

 

“Wanna spend a night in Hell honey?”

“Why don’t you drive right on through to Heaven instead?” said Kelly, trying to sound flippant. She had never felt more afraid and it wasn’t just the name of the town.

A shadow moved on to the road ahead, and stayed out in front of them for a few seconds. Then it disappeared. Did she imagine it? It returned, quickly growing as though inflated by an invisible compressor, and began to form into a ragged sphere. What was it? Could Pete see it?

She pointed but Pete was already looking, straining for a better view.

“What the hell was that?”

He flicked the high beams off, then on again to see if it was a trick of light. No trick. The shape grew larger still and was soon joined by another, then another.

Pete gripped the wheel in panic, his blood starved hands shared a ghostly luminescence which shone on his face but he did not slow down.

“Is it an animal? I can’t see. I can’t tell!”

Kelly was frozen, suffocating behind a mask of awful terror as she watched a third shape ooze up from underneath the road. The three things maintained their speed and kept themselves just in front of the car before suddenly merging into one. The new shapeless entity was bigger than the car.

As they stared in dumb horror, a huge misshapen head extended from the centre of the black formless mass, followed quickly by two arms, then two long and powerful legs.  It was running!

Kelly screamed as it turned to look over its shoulder at them. Accompanied by a wide toothless smile, two bloodshot eyeballs floated in a sea of torn flesh, gawking mischievously.

Madness gripped Pete, insane fear drove him to press harder on the accelerator as the monstrous apparition turned its whole hulking frame to face them. Still running, backwards now, it laughed at them.

“I’ll kill you, get off the road, I’ll kill you!” roared Pete.

“I’ll kill you, get off the road, I’ll kill you!” mimicked the beast, its disturbingly deep and raspy voice amplified inside the car.

In the same instant that the running creature put up his open palmed hands and stopped dead in the middle of the road, the car crashed into a tree and split in two. Flung like worthless trash, the twisted halves of metal and plastic sped through the cold night air in opposite directions, carrying human debris with them.

 

The crumpled bodies of the young couple were discovered the next morning, on either side of a sign post which stood like a sentinel in a grassy field. The doctor rose from his knees and nodded to the police sergeant who pulled a blanket over the face of the woman. He looked at the sign and sadly shook his head as he read.

 

Welcome to Hell.

We have two graveyards and no hospitals.

Please drive carefully.

 

D.A. Cairns is married with two teenagers and lives on the south coast of New South Wales where he works part time as an English language teacher and writes stories in his very limited spare time. He has had 17 short stories published (but who’s counting right?) Devolution was his first novel and novel no.2 is currently seeking an agent or a publisher. Anyone interested?

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