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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…

Metro Meats was a slaughterhouse here in town that employed a lot of young people during the seventies. My aunty used to work there, but a number of young men, some still alive, but older now, did their best to ruin her time at the place.

They once locked her in a cold, dark freezer room, as a joke, but the joke went too far when she felt a finger inside her. Then, through word of mouth, they heard of compensation payouts, and some of them would amputate their own thumbs in front of her with the upright bonesaw. To them, it was nothing.

My town, the town of Eugene, is like a lot of small towns, and it has its horror stories.

There was one kid I remember, Danny Mullen, who had a thing for showing off to the girls on his BMX bicycle. He would play chicken with oncoming cars up on Matthews Avenue and one day he lost, getting hit, hit hard, pinned beneath the vehicle, and dragged about a hundred meters down the road. I remember his teeth rolling to rest in the muddy silt of the gutter and the Police never did find his nose.

In nineteen eight-six, a young man, Shawn Ingamells, only seventeen, was found murdered just out of town, by the the side of the road. He was placed there two days after his death, Police found.

He worked as an apprentice mechanic and his boss was infatuated with him.

It was Christmas Eve and both men got together on the pretext of having a few beers, watching some porn, smoking some weed. The young man was found just after New Years, butterflied from his dick to his chin, filled with dirt, bullets, additional knife wounds, and had been burned in an old iron drum.

The people who found him thought he was the carcass of a decomposing animal.

That's Christmas around here sometimes.

Nineteen ninety saw the Rural Technology High School massacre. All the animals in the science department had been slaughtered, but the bodies were missing, never to be recovered, and all that remained on the cages were bits of intestine. Dogs were blamed, but Darren Black, a student, was found to have done it. His explanation was that the black rabbit belonged to him and Suzette had been feeding it.

There was no black rabbit and there was no Suzette. It's believed he ate the evidence, or passed it on to his family as food.

My town, the town of Eugene, is like a lot of small towns, and it has its horror stories.

I still live here.

 

 

The End

 

 

BIO: I live in Orange, New South Wales, Australia. I have one child -a daughter. I was born in 1977. My poetry has appeared in anthologies world wide, and my short stories have appeared in men's magazines. I cite James Herbert, Tales from the Crypt, vintage Penny Dreadfuls, and Ripley's Believe It, or Not as an influence.

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