"Him" by Tyler J. Vitt (Novelette)

Genre:  Horror

Type of Short Story:  Novelette

Summary:  Three black circles arranged in a very specific pattern, a simple arrangement of rudimentary shapes but one that has seized and destroyed the minds of several men. Will Henry Johns, the most recent artist to stumble across the maddeningly simple image, discover the meaning behind the trio of black circles, or will he succumb and become just another of its many victims?

Excerpt:

“Hi, Kevin,” Henry said, unsure of how to speak to the man; he found himself wanting to treat the patient as a child. He paused. “I’m an artist, like you.”

No response.

“I have a... friend,” continued Henry, “who showed me this picture.” He tapped one of the drawings nearby, a Burnt Sienna rendition. “He asked me if I knew what it was, but I have no idea. Do you know what it is?”

Kevin, having been working on the oval, slowed his hand with the charcoal but kept going over the same line again and again. He did this for nearly half a minute, then suddenly dropped the charcoal and launched to his feet. Rushing across the room, he tore a picture from the wall and held it out towards Henry. It was one of the faces with a pentagram over top of it. Henry noticed that the eyes and the mouth each sat on a different tip of the pentagram, and that the mouth was only a semi-circle. A quick glance around the room revealed that a portion of the mouth was missing in every image. The semi-circle made it seem as though the face was grinning a minute, cartoony smile, and that somehow made it all the more unsettling.

“It’s him,” Kevin hissed quietly.

“Who’s he?” Henry asked, matching the patient’s low volume.

“Him.” He hesitated, thinking, then with a crayon he retrieved from the floor drew three 6s beside the face. Henry frowned ever so slightly, and Kevin, staring at him, noticed the twitch of the brow. He looked around, exchanged his green crayon for a red one, and, pressing the picture against the wall, carefully drew two shapes protruding from the oval. He turned and presented it again to Henry: the triple-circle-and-oval face, a pentagram overtop of it, 666 written beneath it, and two red horns protruding from the sides of the oval face. Henry mentally kicked himself for being so slow.

“Satan?” he asked, returning Kevin’s gaze.

The patient nodded once, slowly.

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"When Walls Can Talk" by Cate Dean (Novella)

Genre:  Young Adult Fantasy

Type of Short Story:  Novella

Summary:  A missing prince. A haunted castle. A dangerous man bent on ruling the kingdom - whatever the cost.

When Rosamond and her friend Dan head out on her birthday to explore an abandoned and haunted castle, they expect to find only a ghost or two. Instead they discover the missing prince, and stumble into the middle of a violent, desperate bid for the throne.

In order to save the injured Prince Jaren, and themselves, Rosamond must reach beyond her own violent past to find her courage, and Dan must find the way to his true self.

Their only help is a children's story come to life: an ancient sorcerer whose soul has been trapped in the walls of the castle for centuries.

Can they keep the prince alive long enough to bring him home safe?

Can they defeat the man who would be king?

*Includes preview chapters at the end for The Claire Wiche Chronicles and TimeSearch trilogy.

Excerpt:

Jaren knew he was dying.

The voice that spoke to him from thin air simply confirmed it.

“Who—” Jaren swallowed, his left hand slipping on the chain that held him suspended above the stone floor. He knew it would take the last of his strength to talk to what had to be his own delusion. But part of him—the part he buried years ago to protect himself from his uncle—needed to know. “Who are you?”

“You know already, master, though your heart denies it.”

“Black Mountain sorcery,” he whispered.

Rage smacked him. He clutched the chain as fresh agony scorched his injuries.

“I was born and trained on Black Mountain, proud in my power. I am the sorcerer your kind fears and tried to destroy so long ago. But know this for the truth—sorcery has never been worked inside these walls.” The rage receded, left Jaren gasping. “Acknowledge me, master, or I cannot help you.”

The voice asked for the impossible, asked for him to validate children’s stories whispered in the dark. Stories of long-dead wizards who infused the very walls of their home with knowledge, with life. Jaren hadn’t even believed them as a child.

“You are not real.”

A sigh wrapped around him.

“Were that true, master, you would die here, alone and helpless.” The voice lowered, brushing against his ear as if someone stood next to him. “There has never been a death inside these walls, and I will not allow you to be the first.”

Jaren closed his eyes. His mind, his body, slipped closer to the waiting darkness.

“I may have to…disappoint you.”

“Find your way, master.” The voice rose in anguish now, spearing through Jaren. “Find your way to the truth, and I can set you free.”

“I cannot—” He choked back a scream as torn muscle wrenched under the constant strain of his weight. Pain seared his lacerated arm. Blood slid down his side, his back—blood he could not afford. “Gods—”

“Master—”

“Stop calling me master. Either help me or leave me in peace.”

Anger licked at him. He flinched, moaned when the rough steel of the shackles dug deeper into his wrists.

“Your choice, master. Accept me, and I can free you. Deny me, and you are alone.”

Jaren opened his mouth, not sure what he would say. And stilled when his uncle Arthur appeared in the doorway.

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"Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Eyes" by Mike Dennis (Short Story)

Genre:  Noir Fiction

Type of Short Story:  Short Story

Summary:  In this short story, Harry's a blackjack dealer at the Flamingo in Las Vegas. The kind of guy you'd never notice. Ordinary-looking, inconspicuous, practically invisible. Lives in a little apartment behind the hotel. Been working graveyard shift for twelve years now. Got no life of any consequence.

But one night Petra sits down at his table, and then…

Excerpt:

Oh, they were a deep blue, all right. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. They were the color of the clear desert sky in those first brief moments before the onset of dusk, right when the blue begins to darken, to veer into violet. Somewhere right after periwinkle, that’s where her eyes were.

If only I’d never noticed them.

≈≈≈

She came up to my table one summer night at Bally's, setting about two thousand in chips in front of her. It was slow that night, even for the graveyard shift. The usual racket of the slots was down by quite a few steps. Here in the pit, dice action had narrowed to one table, and even those players were restrained. The roulette tables were empty, wheels stilled beneath thick canvas covers.

There was only one other player in my game, a collegiate-looking type in a sweatshirt at first base. He was playing five and ten bucks a hand, stuck about three hundred.

“What do you pay for blackjack?” she asked.

“Three to two,” I replied without looking up. When I did look at her, I blinked and swallowed at the same time.

Plenty of reddish-brown hair framed her face, falling to her shoulders. Her mouth, nose, cheekbones, neck … hell, I don’t know. I didn’t even catch the clothes. After the hair, I only saw the eyes. They were beckoning, shrewd, sexy, and … and vile. Swimming in large chalky pools, daring you to dive in.

Shit, she could’ve been the bride of Frankenstein and I wouldn’t’ve noticed.

She placed two green twenty-five-dollar chips over the line. Joe College bet another single red fin.

I dealt the cards. He busted, she hit blackjack. I slid three green chips toward her.

“Wow! That was pretty easy.”She sounded like she meant it. She upped her bet to a hundred.

Here come the cards. Joe College busts again, she catches two face cards, and I bust. I pushed her a hundred.

“Ooh, I love it,” she said. But she wasn’t the only one.

Reaching onto her stack in front of her, she counted out five hundred, then shoved it over the line. “Let’s live dangerously, okay?”

I looked right at her, which I shouldn’t’ve done. But hell, I never know what’s good for me. After swallowing again, I found my voice hiding somewhere in the back of my throat and forced it to say, “Okay.”

Looking back at me through thick lashes, she knew I wasn’t just talking about her bet.

Then, after only a moment, I had to look away from her — although I really didn't want to — back to the shoe and the cards and the game. I didn’t want her to catch me staring, but it may have been too late.

She hit blackjack again.

I paid her seven hundred fifty.

“When do they change dealers?”

I glimpsed my watch. “Twenty-five minutes.”

She gathered her chips into her purse and got up from the table. As she started to walk away, she turned back to me, asking, “What time does the coffee shop open?”

Now, the first thing that even the dumbest rubes learn when they come to Las Vegas is that places like casino coffee shops never close. “It’s open twenty-four hours a day,” I replied.

“Thanks.”And she sashayed away, disappearing into the deepest reaches of the casino. I knew where I was headed when my shift ended.

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"The Last Blind Date" by Valerie Gillen (Short Story)

Genre:  Romance

Type of Short Story:  Short Story

Summary:  When Kristen's best friend Judy insists on fixing her up with an endless series of terminal losers, Kristen extracts a promise from her friend that tonight will the last, the very last blind date she goes on. And she is sticking to that promise, until she meets Bill. Is Bill another big check mark in the No Way, No How column, or could he really be - the one?

Excerpt:

“I’m off dating,” I said to my best friend when she showed up at my door with a hopeful look on her face and another phone number clutched in her hot little hand. “After that last creep, I’m staying home. The men can come and find me.”

“Then it’ll be Jack the mailman, who’s 70 if he’s a day, or that meter reader with B.O. and terminal halitosis.” Judy declared. She searched my closet, shuffling through the hangers with the expertise of a casino card dealer. “Where’s that sexy black dress that makes you look like a million bucks?”

“Jude. I’m not going. Besides, I burned my black dress after the last blind date you sent me on.”

“Oh, come on, he wasn’t that bad! And this one is it, I can feel it in my bones.”

As if she hadn’t said that about the last ten guys she’d sicced on me. There was more rattling as she moved deeper into the closet.

“Whaddya mean, ‘wasn’t that bad’,” I said, trying futilely to restore order as Hurricane Judy bulldozed through my clothes. “My dress had drool stains on it. That’s where it is - at the cleaner’s.” I crossed my fingers and prayed this was true. No way was I going out with any more of Judy’s “sure things”.

She turned, triumphant, the dress pristine in dry cleaner plastic dangling from her hand. My spirits sank.

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"Maze vs Zombies" by John Dax (Flash Fiction)

Genre:  Horror

Type of Short Story:  Flash Fiction

Summary:  An accident at a top-secret research facility sets Mark in a race against time. He knows he's infected and doomed. All he wants is to kiss his wife and child goodbye. Is that too much to ask?

This story is illustrated with 5 hand drawn mazes.

Excerpt:

Mark winced in pain, looking quickly to his hand. "Damn, that hurt," he thought seconds before the full implication of what he'd just done reached his brain.

Contact with Specimen #568, the deceptively inert lump of mutagenic virus-infected necrotic tissue, had just cut short Mark’s work day. And his employment with the top-secret work facility. And his life.

“I've got to say goodbye to Andrea and baby Sally,” Mark thought as he started to count down the hours he had left to live.

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"Supervillain: The Concise Guide" by Ras Ashcroft (Novella)

Genre:  Humor/Parody

Type of Short Story:  Written like a guide, novella length

Summary:  Are you tired of living a humdrum life? Is there little to look forward to except a dead-end job and more news headlines that remind you of your insignificance in the world? Do you think the future of humanity depends on your potent leadership skills? Well forget about the nonsense of running for political office and become a supervillain instead.

Fancy degrees and qualifications are not required. With this concise guide, you will learn all the basic tricks of the trade. Ease into your first seedy business, create a large organisation with interests in finance, media and politics, and build a powerful military force. Eventually you will launch your crusade to rule the entire planet.

Take your shot at world domination – and hit the bull’s-eye.

Excerpt:

A popular brand of dictionary defines the term ‘Supervillain’ as follows:

su•per•vil•lain [soo-per-vil-uh n]: A malicious person usually involved in complex schemes to achieve an ambitious evil end goal such as world domination.

This is a white lie since dictionaries do not even bother to define the term. Perhaps it is because they think that ‘Supervillain’ is a title which bears no real significance outside fiction. Another more probable theory hints at a massive conspiracy involving the heads of the powerful dictionary-industrial complex. Whatever the reason, many average people still aspire to achieve this title. They wish to experience the simple (and clichéd) pleasures of relaxing in a diamond palace on a throne crafted from the skulls of their enemies.

By reading this book, you have taken the first step towards achieving these nefarious goals! Along the way, your loved ones will tell you that this is a ridiculous path to follow. They will tout the merits of following a more traditional career path, such as a Marketing Executive for a major brand or a Cat Groomer for upper class spinsters. Pay little attention to these naysayers. The only Marketing Executives you should worry about are the ones you will eventually hire to manage your propaganda. Similarly, the only cats worth grooming will be the genetically modified lions under your command.

Others may try to reason with you, by claiming that some normal career paths these days can easily satisfy your thirst for evil. At this point, they will direct you to the careers section of your friendly neighbourhood investment bank’s website and say “Look, why not become an investment banker? You’ll be rich, respected at posh dinner parties and you can fulfil your need to commit evil by becoming an integral part of a corrupt finance machine!”

While this is true to a minor extent, it is a long way from the recognition you will gain as a supervillain. You will simply exist as a disposable cog in a faceless organisation. Your real aim is to become the face of your OWN organisation, dedicated to more than just the chore of amassing wealth. After all, the novelty of currency will wear thin once you have an entire micro-nation converted to a secure vault, holding trillions in crisp banknotes with your grinning face on them. Money must simply be viewed as a crude but necessary tool.

Popular publications often attribute the origins of a supervillain to a tragic set of events in that person’s past. Traumatic childhoods, lab explosions and a slow descent into insanity usually figure in the pages of their biographies. They also tend to believe that their actions genuinely benefit society. Such factors can help shape their personality, but they are not necessary preconditions.

By harnessing the power of positive villainous thinking, you too can cultivate wealth, image, respect and connections. You will master these areas and find yourself in a dominant position, where you can hold entire nations hostage on demand. At this point, you can forgive your former critics and invite them for a dip in one of your private champagne lakes. Alternatively, you could opt for a more traditional lake of fire party by throwing them in the super-volcano you activated when those pesky North Americans refused to bow down to your will.

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"Highway 90" by Heather Ross (Novelette)

Genre:  Young Adult Drama

Type of Short Story:  Novelette

Summary:  For Brooke and Paige, life in a small border town is getting boring. The same faces cruising the boulevard and getting drunk in the desert just feel so high school until a trip to a Mexican nightclub changes the way they view life, love and freedom.

Excerpt:

"Paige, did you see that?" I don't have to ask. Her face looks as shocked as my voice sounds.

"What should we do?" She lets her foot off the gas glancing at me. The thought of seeing a dead body makes my stomach sink. I've only seen two in my lifetime, my uncle, which I would have preferred not to see dead, but no one told me the funeral was open casket until I walked in the door of the mortuary. The other was on the side of the road, thrown from a van rolling across the center divider. My mom kept saying, "Don't look," from her seat in front of me, but the more she said it the more I felt like I had to see. I was only six, but I still remember the person, bloody limbs scraped raw and bleeding laying lifeless on the highway, eyes open just staring. I don't know if it was a man or woman, but I do know I didn't understand death as much as I understood pain. That looked painful and I didn't want to die if it meant pain.

"We should go back." I stare straight ahead unsure if the words really came from my mouth. I wait for Paige's response, but she's quiet. At this point, I won't protest if she keeps driving. She slows pulling to the side of the road then makes a u-turn. We drive in silence. My heart is beating hard and fast. I hope it's a figment, a joke or that someone else stopped, like the paramedics. All of my ideas disappear as our headlights spread over the lifeless figure. Paige makes another u-turn pulling up within twenty feet of the body, half the car still on the highway.

"What if this is some kind of joke?" Paige looks around like an army of guerrillas is waiting in the brush to jump us.
"Paige, do you see the blood? Who's gonna joke about that?" She looks over the steering wheel squinting her eyes as if looking for a ketchup packet nearby.

"Just stay in the car if you're so damn freaked out." I open my door. It's pitch black except for the headlights and a full moon. The desert's finally beginning to cool. I hesitate for a second hearing my dad, "Don't stop for strangers." Technically, this isn't a stranger. It's a dead person. Besides, what will he say when I tell him, "I drove past a person on the highway last night just layin' there all bloody and lifeless, but you said don't stop for strangers." I imagine he'd be more disappointed than if I'd stopped, but more than that, I'd be too disappointed in myself to tell.

I start toward the body. I'm not good with blood, even get queasy at the sight of my own, and the body is covered in it. Dark patches that look like dry paint surround the figure while bright red streaks ooze from wounds I can't see. The person is on their side facing away from me, probably the only reason I'm still standing. I look back at the car. I can't see Paige through the glare of the headlights, but I'm sure she's chewing her nails watching me. As I get closer I hear breathing. It reminds me of Darth Vader, raspy, strained, filled with fluid. A low groan follows. It scares me so much I almost pee myself. I can't just stand here watching someone die.

Buy this story on Amazon.  Check out Ross's other work on her website.