Greetings to all wherever you are!
It's the first Saturday of December, so it's time for a final FREE short story
for 2023! This one is titled “The Errand” and it’s a tale about a man who goes
through the woods of Bitternest to run an errand and will see the course of his
life altered forever. It was first published in 2008 in the Darkened Horizons Vol. 4 anthology and
later reprinted in my first collection, The
Bitternest Chronicles, in 2010. You can download it as a PDF right here.
In case you missed them, you can
download the previous entries in Short Story Time below. Enjoy and drop me a
line to let me know what you think of those tales!
“Hershell’s Motel” is a strange
tale about an unusual motel where, you guessed it, bizarre things happen.
“The Rattling Man” is a coming of
age Halloween tale. Do you believe in the bogeyman? Do you believe in the
Rattling Man? Find out who or what he is!
“Crimson Nightmares” is my take
on the “Halloween” movie series. Written and initially published digitally back
in 2011, this 106-page novella picks up 33 years after the events of the second
"Halloween" film from 1981, the night when Michael Myers terrorized
Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and the residents of Haddonfield,
Illinois. It follows little Lindsey Wallace, the little girl Laurie Strode
babysat in the first “Halloween” (1978) film, who is all grown-up now and bears
the scars of that terrible night to this day. She has moved to my fictitious
town of Bitternest, Louisiana to get away from her past and has been leading a
quiet life, that is until something inside Michael Myers snaps and he comes
looking for her on Halloween. Add to that a killer clown with an agenda of his
own and it’s a Halloween you won’t soon forget. It’ll be a showdown for the
ages when Michael Myers comes to the eerie city of Bitternest.
“The Bypassed Mind”, a romantic
suspense/fantasy story with some hypnosis thrown in for good measure that was
directly inspired by the late, great Richard Matheson's novel Bid Time Return also adapted as the film
"Somewhere in Time".
“Breaking and Entering”, the
story of a man who enters people’s homes just for kicks, never stealing
anything, just to see what goes on behind close doors. One day he’ll stumble
upon something that will change his life forever…
“Scapegoat”, a tale about the
Curse of the Cubs, the love of baseball, some time travel, and a whole lot of
nostalgia. Even if you're not into baseball, this fantasy tale filled with
mystery is sure to entertain you.
Last but not least, fans of
Conan and Dungeons & Dragons can also download a PDF of the first two tales
of the ongoing adventures of my Sword & Sorcery character AMOK right here.
