Category: Short Fiction

Gil’s All Fright Diner remains a $2.99 deal on Kindle for this month. My first novel was published 17 years ago. Time comes for us all. Since then, I’ve published a few books, so maybe you’ve never read it. Here’s a great chance to do that.

In the meantime, here’s an original free short story featuring Duke, one of the protagonists of the novel. Hope you enjoy it.

Duke came out of the bathroom to find Marcy pointing a gun at him. He rubbed a towel across his wet hair and reached for his beer on the table beside him.

“Don’t try anything,” she said.

Duke, big and fat and hairy and naked, took a long swig of his beer. The only light in the motel room came from the bathroom behind him, the cheap lamp beside Marcy, and whatever was filtering through the broken blinds.… Read the rest “The Fearful Moon”

There was always someone who thought they had it figured it out. They all had the same cocksure smile, the same glint of forbidden knowledge behind their eyes, as they came knocking on my door. This newest visitor was no different.

He wore a leather jacket and had a face full of piercings. His hair was shorn short on one side, but long enough everywhere else to fall into his eyes. A goatee completed the look, and I imagined he thought himself a real edgy soul.

He appraised me. Mandrake the Magician T-shirt, cargo shorts, tattered bathrobe, sneakers. He smirked. I ignored that. He’d figure it out.

I took a sip of my Irish coffee in my favorite “Ketumati is for Lovers” mug. “Something I can do for you?”

“I’m here to learn,” he said.

“Who says I’m here to teach?”… Read the rest “An Endless Search”

Steve had always dreamt of finding lost pirate treasure.  There was something enticing about the notion of discovering something lost and forgotten in the ocean.  Romantic in a way that few things were.

It was why he’d taken up scuba diving in the first place.  He knew that salvage was serious business, and you didn’t just stumble into lost artifacts by going for a swim.  He didn’t dive in hopes of getting rich and famous.  He dove for his love of it.  If he should happen to get rich and famous while he was at it, he wasn’t going to complain.

He was already rich, but like most people, he wouldn’t have minded being richer.  He blamed his lower class upbringing for that, but he also knew that was a just-so-story for perfectly normal behavior.  It was human nature to want more.… Read the rest “The Stuff of Legends”

“Eat lead, master race,” Charlie quipped as he pumped three shots into the fuhrer’s chest, another between Hitler’s eyes for good measure.

Hitler’s corpse fell across his desk, dead before he really knew what hit him. Sometimes, Charlie let the fuhrer twist in the wind a little before killing him. Now he usually just shot him.  Charlie poured himself some of Hitler’s tea and drank a sip, which he did not like. The fuhrer put too much milk in it. Then Charlie pushed a button on his watch and blinked away.

On the street below, he stuck his hands in his pockets and walked away.

“Nice night,” said a woman strolling beside him. He recognized her as a fellow time traveler. The walkman clipped to her belt gave it away.

“Nicer than it was,” he said as the ambulances came screaming down the road past them.… Read the rest “The Better Tomorrows”

An ode to Valentine’s Day, Cosmic Horror Style. Hope you enjoy it, Action Force.

They sing my praises. Oh, how they sing. Their words drift from the cliffs overlooking the angry sea, swallowed up by the crashing waves, sinking to the unexplored depths, where the sleeping city waits. Where I wait, mostly forgotten, but never completely. There will always be those who remember, those I touch in their dreams, those who can hear my whispers.

They think they love me, but the truth is that they have no choice but to adore me, those that find me. It is in their nature, and while I pity them for it, I find no love in it. At the bottom of the sea, in the cold darkness, I hear their cries of worship. And I only feel more alone.

It is a terrible loneliness I carry across eternity.… Read the rest “THAT WHICH MAY ETERNAL LOVE”

Life in Rockwood

The Senorita had watched over Emilia Flores’s garden before there had been a garden. The old scarecrow had shown up not long after the first house had been built. No one could remember who put the Senorita up with her black flamenco dress stuffed with straw and her pumpkin head, painted black and white with her eyes closed and a wry smile across her lips. But she seemed to do no harm, and when the first house was torn down and a new one built in its place, pains were taken to not disturb the Senorita. And when Emilia had decided to plant a garden, beneath the Senorita’s watchful gaze seemed the right place for it.

The garden did flourish. Occasionally they’d find a dead rabbit or bird among the tomatoes and carrots. Emilia would remark that it was the Senorita taking her due, that death was part of life, and that there was no better metaphor than a garden.… Read the rest “A Dance with the Senorita”

Jen drove into the swamp on a cool wet night. The roads were muddy, but her four wheel drive could handle it. She drove through the dark, an unopened beer in her hand. She thought about taking a drink because–fuck it– it was only one beer and anyone wandering through the swamp at this time of night deserved to get run over. But if it happened by some one-in-a-million chance, she’d feel shitty about it. She didn’t need that. Though killing someone would be the perfect finish to her night.

She drove through the mist, afraid she’d miss her turn. It’d been years since she’d been to the cabin.

The turn came. It was farther than she remembered. When the cabin finally came into view, she barely recognize it.

The place was a broken down shack. It still stood, but she expected it’d fall over if she slammed the jeep door too forcefully.… Read the rest “Lost and Found in the Mire”

Geneva Cthulhu

Most of the time, freelancing for the Unknowables was a simple gig. Track something down. Bring something back. Fix this. Break that. Keep your head down. Don’t ask too many questions because the answers are never going to satisfy you.

But sometimes things got complicated. Sometimes, you ended up surrounded by cultists worshipping ancient gods. Most of the gods didn’t give a damn about who or who didn’t worship them. We were beneath their notice. Tiny crawling things screaming to the void in hopes it might hear us, never pondering it might be better to be ignored. We looked to the stars with dreams of greatness when all along it was waiting to devour us for wanting more than we had.

There was nothing wrong with wanting more. I had dreams. Dreams of living with Mom under the sea, dwelling in the shadow of an indifferent god.… Read the rest “The Indifferent Stars”

Life in Rockwood

The Weeping Woman had haunted Jack since he was a boy as she had haunted all the men of the Banfield family. Sometimes, when alone, the phone would ring, and he’d answer to the sounds of gentle weeping. Or when flicking through the channels of the TV, he’d come across a static-filled outline of the gaunt, pale woman, her face hidden behind the her burial shroud. Once, he’d seen her under the flickering streetlight beside the Gas N Guzzle. Mostly shadow, though she grimaced with her pointed yellow teeth and wrung a bloodied cloth with her claw-like fingers. He’d almost confronted her then, but a car horn distracted him. When he turned back, she was gone.

Although she was never really gone.

The Woman had followed the Banfields long before they’d come to Rockwood. Jack’s ma said that one of the Banfield ancestors had killed his wife in a jealous rage, and that this was God’s punishment for the crime.… Read the rest “Curses”