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Latest Stories

June 04, 2025
General Stories Dylan James Harper

The Bylaws Of The Revolutionary Council

A loud clang rang through the bunker as the door slammed shut. “I really think we have a chance to win this thing!” Greg’s voice echoed throughout the cold walls. The three other inhabitants of the bunker, Jeff, Ben, and Malcolm, all sat around a table…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Resurrection

The man lay there in extremis, no longer thinking of cool abstracts like ‘catching the last train for the coast.’ He gulped great rasping breaths – holding them impossibly long – before finally exhaling in a shuttering burst of putrid air. He had been…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Time Warp

Nothing was in order, nothing optimal. Germany was awash with refugees and adventurers. Only Angie could hold it together; but then she opened the gates! Who knows why? Other politicians were dinosaurs in the museum. Integration was the solution, was it? That…
June 04, 2025
Fantasy Stories M.D. Smith

Car Of Dreams

Randy Jenkins, age sixty, lived the kind of life people don’t write stories about. He sold office supplies out of a small showroom in the back corner of a strip mall just outside Corpus Christi. He wore beige. Ate microwave dinners. And spent more time…
June 04, 2025
Science Fiction Stories David Rich

Earth Forever

With an exhale, Damerae unclipped a lint-free cloth from his desk, snatched it from the air, and wiped his glasses. He preferred staying hidden in his cozy interior office in the bowels of Orbital Counterweight Station of the International Space Elevator. But…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction George Vu

A Stolen Kiss A Beautiful Dream

It had been a long, exhausting day for her – a blur of endless tasks and demands. Yet, despite it all, she had fought for a moment to be with him. Stealing time from the world around her, she walked into the room quietly, hoping to surprise him. After a few…
June 04, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Cow Bells

Based on actual incidents. Swiss Cabinet meeting, 15 March 1943 The American Ambassador has no comment, no explanation. We can expel the Ambassador in protest. I prefer he remains here under close surveillance. The bombing yesterday was of nuisance value; it…
June 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Signed To The Message

do your bit for king and country. are you a coward? or are you brave? so now is the time to sacrifice you don`t want to let your mates down it`s a kinship of the soul you know that’s the Australian way it was the message that was kept being sold so they…
June 04, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

On The Rebound

I was sitting in a bar knocking back my third Jack Daniels, when a drop-dead gorgeous blonde walked in. As she paused, surveying the room, I raised my glass in a complimentary salute. It was a ‘Hail Mary’ move, and I could hardly believe it when she came…
June 04, 2025
Science Fiction Stories M.D. Smith

Unplanned Landing

Red lights pulsed. Sirens howled. “Alert. Navigation failure. Proximity alert. Impact in thirty seconds.” Captain Mara Voss shot upright in her cryo-pod, lungs gasping like a drowning swimmer. Across the chamber, the rest of the crew jerked awake, groggy and…
June 04, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Marching To The Same Beat

an angel stands under a lonely pine showing the way to the lost souls the ones who innocently answered the king’s call and now flags fly half mast for those that no-more stand buried in some far off foreign land the pipes call out to the brave and the angel…
April 29, 2025
Fantasy Stories Chris Turner-Neal

The Gorgon’s Climb

I am the only one of us who calls it rape. Stheno, when she must mention it, says “our bad luck;” Medusa shrugs and says “gods don’t have to ask.” And I say but they should and she says but they don’t and Stheno says this attitude doesn’t help, and she’s…

The twilight was queer indeed; a blood red moon that seemed as if to bleed into the sky, leaving it congealed in the dusk. For a vampire hunter, this was expected. Whenever the sky was a blood-red, it meant trouble.

Up the mountain he went, his face scarred and cracked, a peculiar saw-like weapon on his back. Wolves howled somewhere in the distance. A fine welcome this is, thought the hunter.

 

He, as a poor contractor seeking work hunting vampires and lycans, had learned of a coven of the freaks that had sought refuge in a mountaintop retreat, a great bastion that once was home to the ruling count of the vale, now usurped by bloodsuckers and monsters of the night.

 

He had been promised a bag of gold, a horse (though rather sickly-looking), a local harlot to keep him company on the road, and a morsel of food by the peasants of some local hovel town, not too far from the mountain's bastion retreat. He had liked the look of the wench, and had given her a sickening smile of approval. Her hair was black as coal, her breasts modest, her flitting eyes beautiful yet fearful. Fuck your gold and gruel, I would be happy with just her, he had thought.

 

Though the sky was previously red, it was now black as the night swept over the land of Drazcroll. The hunter stood outside the closed portcullis, awaiting some form of welcome. "Hurry up, you bastard usurpers, I don’t have all day!" he called cockily.

 

Some form of creature emerged from the shadows of the forecourt, shuffling its way toward the gate, grunting and snarling, sometimes sounding pained.

 

The creature appeared at the door, more were-dog than werewolf.  He stood on his hind legs but appeared to struggle to do so. His ears were floppy like a cocker spaniel's. "Be gone, human!" it growled, trying to sound more threatening than it was. "Lest you wish to be tonight's main course."

 

"I'm afraid I taste quite awful, I can assure you. Worse things than you have tried to have me as a feast," said the hunter, rather unperturbed. "Fetch your master, if you would be so kind. I know vampires are smarter than people realize, and I am one who does. I studied vampires, studied them since I was a child, and I wish to make an arrangement with the one who has usurped this bastion. Hurry now, it's frightfully cold out here."

 

The dog-creature growled in protest, but seemed to prefer this vampire hunter's persona more than the other would-be hunters that had tried to raid the bastion before … and failed. In fact, he seemed genuine. Men feared vampires. They were clever and cunning, wise yet dangerous, not to be taken lightly. The creature shuffled slowly away, back into the shadows of the castle. The hunter stood shaking for the cold.

 

The portcullis was raised suddenly, pulled open by some unknown force. Magic? The hunter was intrigued. Definitely dealing with vampires, then.

 

The hunter passed the threshold quickly, so as not to be squashed as the gate thundered down behind him, and made his way to the entrance. As he wandered through the forecourt, he could hear ghostly whispers all around him. Either a threat or a way to deter the fearful and ignorant into fleeing for their lives, the hunter thought.

 

Inside, the castle was indeed an impressive sight; it was almost homely. "This way," said a chillingly distant voice from somewhere … or nowhere.

 

The hunter followed, still unperturbed by the ghostly sounds that littered the air of the castle. Shut up, will you?! the hunter wanted to scream; he knew this was a vampire's way of using fear as a security measure. He continued to wander the halls to where the voice called him.

 

Sat in a grand and luxurious solar with a roaring fire at the hearth was a powdered and wigged man, dressed in all kinds of finery, though his eyes and blood-red lips gave away something else, something hidden but not hidden enough. He sat crossed legged in a snug little chair reading a book of some forgotten age, a large ponderous tome. The hunter stopped at the threshold of the door, barely visible save for the candle and lantern light of the solar. The powdered man lowered his book … and smiled.

 

The hunter removed his saw-like weapon, not to initiate combat, but to simply place it against the wall; the hunter was ready to talk.

 

"Greetings to you, strange one," said the creature, casting aside his book to the floor, gaily leaping up from his seat. The creature acted in some extravagant and theatrical way, clasping his hands together as if pleased to meet this ragged man's acquaintance. "Welcome to my home. I'd offer you a drink, but I doubt you'd like what I have to offer."

 

"This ain't your home, kid …"

 

"Kid?" The vampire sounded disgusted.

 

"You're a young vampire, I can see, still trying to come to grips with your new necessity. You don’t like the idea of being a creature of the night, do you? Don't like being a hellspawn demon? No, you want to be somebody, don’t you? Why else would you slay the master of the bastion and threaten the peasants down in their little dirt villages? You want to play at being in power. Perhaps you never got the chance when you were still human."

 

The vampire giggled a girlish titter. "Darling," he said flamboyantly, "I fear I have no idea what you mean. I am a gentleman, a gentleman of this abode. And you're my guest. Sure I can't offer you anything?"

 

"I'm good, thank you," the hunter insisted.

 

"Why, darling, you look famished. You're almost as skinny as I am. But I like to think I look better. Tell me, do you like my attire? Gorgeous, isn't it?"

 

"Stunning," said the hunter facetiously.

 

"Now, here's a queer situation - a vampire hunter and a vampire nattering away with an almost kindly, gentlemanly approach. Almost seems like a bad joke, if you were to ask me, dear fellow." The vampire hummed and spun, snatching up a wine flagon and a golden chalice, and filled it up with what was undoubtedly blood. "A queer smell lingers in the air with you, dear hunter. I know I have a knack for smelling the blood of humans, but I smell human blood that is old on you. Were you in some frightful brawl or something recently, or perhaps you kill humans as well as vampires?"

 

"Only when I have to," said the hunter.

 

The gentlemanly vampire tittered again. "But why, though? Is it for self-defense, or something else, perchance? That old blood on your skin, hmmm, yes, very interesting, I smell fear in that blood."

 

"Quite the nose you have," the hunter grinned.

 

The vampire spun, his tailcoat following him. "Got it! You eat humans, don’t you?"

 

"I try not to make a habit of it. I do it only when I need to."

 

"So, a vampire who feasts on the blood of humans meets a human who shares my taste for blood," the vampire chuckled, sipping his blood drunkenly.

 

"I don’t eat blood, only flesh. Blood doesn't sit well on the stomach for us humans."

 

"Darling, I'm starting to find you most fascinating … I'd even say I might like you."

 

The hunter grinned sickeningly.

 

"Now, tell me, darling," said the vampire, "what is it you want of me?"

 

The hunter took a few steps forward, now face to face with the creature of the night. "I want to make a deal with you, dear host."

 

To be continued.

 

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