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Latest Stories

July 08, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Dance Of Death

CHAPTER ONE 1940 Chief Inspector Kenneth Langford offered the Commissioner a crisp salute, and then walked back through the labyrinth of passageways to his own small office. Langford was a member of the London Metropolitan Police, commonly referred to as…
July 08, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Winter Blues

the winter blues has a grip on me, all so tight Its icy tentacles wrap around me and squeezes freezing my fingers and toes with its nasty frostbite staving off the cold is a battle, an endless fight it brings forth an assortment of nasty diseases The winter…
July 08, 2025
Horror Stories Sushma R Doshi

Deliverer Of Messages

A loner in my childhood, my scrawny and weak figure prone to being bullied by sturdy and robust boys, I tended to wander around places frequented by few. Those curvy roads which fell into darkness after evening without street lights, the area near the pond…
July 08, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

With A Side-Eye I Cherish

for Brittany ma amour Up to my neck in sadness for something just out of reach and she came along and fired up my life with kisses and the physical. The moment I looked into her eyes I didn't want to share her with anyone else and keep her all to myself. In…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Days Of Future Dreams

the days of future dreams the flames once rose high thinking our lives would end up supreme thinking our future seemed a far of dream but in the end nothing is what it seems many times the winds of changed has blown this way one minute we`re lapping the cream…
July 03, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Bad Girl

Part 1I lost the entire manuscript when I assassinated my laptop with sauvignon blanc as I rubbed the lower back of a woman who dozed drunk on my bed, sweating. She was crazed, somewhere between screaming and lying about the orgasm. Bree was a miracle to me,…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Nelly Shulman

Black Is Our Colour

“I swear she could have been you. Look! This girl is your long-lost twin.” Fi nudged me, and I smiled. “Never had or wanted one.” I stood up. “Let’s go, or the bargain hunters will clear the shelves before us.” We dived into the vintage emporium across the…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Transformation

"I need a brake" words that twisted my heart- shattering the dream that we would never part. I asked myself 'what ever did I do wrong? sad, gloominess could`ve easily been my song. I wouldn't let the anger and misery grow or cultivate- uprising feelings I…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Jae

It was Jae’s birthday today. She turned eight. What a beautiful sunny girl! Hyo planned a surprise or two; Li, his wife, did too. Birthday cake, a puppy and … Don’t forget, they grinned just before he drove off. Traffic was intense. A long call came from…
July 03, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Fear

Leandro stood outside the Kroger, leaning forward as he shivered in the early March dawn. He hated this moment: the cold, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness, the anticipation of another day ahead at his degrading job picking collard leaves under the…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Mihko Askiweno

Found You

Panic gripped her as she staggered up the steep, rocky incline, breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. Sweat streamed down her face in torrents, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks in disheveled clumps. Her legs trembled with exhaustion, molten fire…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Lost On The Path

But alas; sometimes I think we've lost our way- too many strayed opinions...one too many a survey. Walking on the road ahead, just following the herd of sheep- with a hypnotised mind, wide awake yet very fast asleep. While yelling...join the team of the…

Lurching awake, gasping for air, and I've dreamt of her again. It's the same as always, lately. She's in Hell, neck deep in snake’s blood, with a foetus hanging above her, and her head is on fire. It doesn't get any better, not even with the pills.

The psychiatrist has asked me what else occurs in this dream.

“ The foetus is crying, “ I told her.

“ You sustained a serious injury in the accident. A car crash is a big deal, Tom. “

The accident...

It had been raining and we were on our way home from the theatre. Annette had wanted to see a stage play. The Woman in Black, that was it. She was twenty-five weeks pregnant. Our first.

A drunk driver collected us head on, without warning, an hour out of town. The impact was highly severe.

I suffered a head injury and Annette was killed outright. It took some time for the emergency services to arrive. I don't know how long we were there until they were notified.

Annette's corpse had expelled our baby, someone who would've been our little girl. She was much like a coffin birth, so I'm told.

I held Annette's hand. It was the only thing I could feel in the wreckage.

Her family buried them both, while I was in hospital, and her brother came to visit me, but only once. They haven't contacted me since.

The drunk driver survived and he and I were only four beds apart in ICU. I awoke before he did and they relocated him to a different hospital. His name was Daryl Hibbert.

The newspaper had a great time with the story. It was going to trial, of course, once Hibbert was well enough. They spoke politely of Annette: Sadly missed school teacher in tragic wreck, wife of senior detective, all that stuff.

Well, I'm not a detective any more.

Annette and I met a fund raiser to do with the awareness of drug addiction and teen suicide. She was twelve years younger than I, beautiful, with auburn hair, and hazel eyes. I'd rarely had the chance to have a love interest, let alone get married.

After a series of surgeries, I had to be moved to a rehabilitation unit. My progress was good, all cognitive and motor skills  seemed to be okay, except for two things. My handwriting wasn't so hot and each time Hibbert, or Annette's name was mentioned, my left hand involuntarily grabbed sharp objects, like a knife, or pen, and proceeded to stab the table, or a chair. I was completely unaware of it.

I wounded several hospital staff.

“ Hey, Tom, “ they would say. “ That Hibbert just got seven years, “ and my left hand would start going at it.

Quite soon, I was disallowed sharp objects.

Finally, I was sent home, given pills, referred into counselling.

Recently, they discovered that in the accident, the two spheres of my brain had torn from each other. This is what causes my involuntary violent actions. Apparently, I can be taught to control it by avoiding things that trigger it.

But I can't avoid my dreams, that reoccurring nightmare. That's when my hand gets the worst.

It has started to choke me in my sleep.

 

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 worldwide 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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